Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Visigoth
Label: Metal Blade Records
Release: 2015
Running time: 60:34
Rating: 3.5/5
Visigoth are hot new power metal warriors from Salt Lake City (Utah, USA), and “The Revenant King” is their studio debut! Power metal made in the USA has usually ended up being listened to almost exclusively in Europe. A whole pile of bands, from Manowar to Virgin Steele to Jag Panzer, found far more love on the old continent than they ever did in North America, because the cradle of true power metal is simply Europe. However much that genre tag gets abused these days, it’s clear Visigoth come from the roots of American speed metal, tempered of course with bombastic, melodic catchiness, which goes hand in hand with lyrics drawing on tales of heroic feats in great battles and wars.
Production-wise, Visigoth are crunchy and rough around the edges. They can’t take much polishing, quantizing or »triggering«. Sonically they sound live and organic, which is a good thing. Sure, the band churns out clichés and, repackaged in a freshened-up wrapper, serves them to the masses again, and it’s predictable and heard many times before, but it’s played, produced and delivered from the heart. That’s why it works. All in all, the essence of this album is extremely listenable, and at the same time the arrangements are nicely varied, enough to keep things interesting so the listener doesn’t bolt from the CD player. The first magnet is definitely the instrumental middle sections, which usually fall into extended passages where the motifs twist and turn, and the moods turn right along with them. The band is great at stitching motifs together and never loses the red thread in the songwriting. Both guitars breathe in dialogue, in unison and on the same wavelength, glowing with brilliant mutual awareness and motif-linking.
Now and then a cliché, worn smooth from overuse, sticks out of the songs and grates with its naivety, but overall that doesn’t spoil the general feeling that this is a very solid studio debut, one with which the band has rightly paved the ground for its career. »The Revenant King« leans at times toward the post-millennium work of Jag Panzer. That goes for the melos of the lead motifs, for the epic, bombastic feel that dresses up the album’s power metal dossier of songs, and also now and then for the vocal delivery, as well as the timbre of singer Jake Rogers, which pulls toward former Jag Panzer singer Harry Conklin.
»The Revenant King« is an album tailor-made for all lovers of epic power metal. The bombast and the element of darker mysticism are clearly present in the punchy character of the elementary heavy metal riff, nicely balanced with the dynamic development of many different moods. As said, it’s an album for everyone who likes American bands anywhere between the newer Jag Panzer and the fossilized, wildly unhinged forms of cult heroes Manilla Road. The album is, however, guaranteed to be two or three songs too long. Precisely because of the reheated clichés. But the youngsters don’t lack drive and creative energy, and experience will bring greater maturity in their approach to songwriting over time. And Visigoth, judging by what we’ve heard on the studio debut, are surely hiding big talents here, ones they will surely build on in the future.
Lineup
Jake Rogers – vocals
Leeland Campana – guitar
Jamieson Palmer – guitar
Matt Brotherton – bass
Mikey Tee – drums
Production
Andy Patterson
Track list
1. The Revenant King
2. Dungeon Master
3. Mammoth Rider
4. Blood Sacrifice
5. Iron Brotherhood
6. Necropolis
7. Vengeance
8. Creature of Desire
9. From the Arcane Mists of Prophecy
