Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Royal Hunt
Label: Scarlet Records
Released: 2010
Runtime: 50:38
Rating: 4.5/5
After the 2008 reshuffle of John West in the permanent vocalist spot, when the great former Malmsteen screamer Mark Boals laid his vocals down on the ambitious new Royal Hunt release, which became the band’s ninth studio album, “Collision Course… Paradox II” (2008), the conceptual continuation and second part of the band’s most successful career album “Paradox” (1997), the lineup didn’t sit still. After plenty of gigging in 2008 and 2009, they quickly stepped back through the studio door and got down to recording a follow-up, which came out in less than two years!
“X”, as the title itself hints, the band’s tenth studio album, brings some important differences from its predecessor. Above all, Royal Hunt have simplified the arrangements. That ever heavily loaded template of classic hard rock compactness in how the songs are put together, stuffed with the symphonic bombast of the baroque, doesn’t push to the front this time the way we’re used to, and the way many fans, especially of the band’s classic early period, always impatiently expect.
On the new album, with the songs lightened up a bit in terms of arrangement bombast, Royal Hunt gain on quite a few points. The first attribute that works better here is the greater melodic hookiness, right from the first listen. Put superficially, the album sounds “commercial”, like few Royal Hunt albums released up to 2010. The reduced variety in the use of keyboard sounds is a surprise too. Andre Andersen mostly sticks to organic sound structures, a warm Hammond blanket and classic piano. With the orchestral arranging stepping back, the hard rock edge goes up, meaning the guitar riffs are far more exposed (the opener End Of The Line makes that clear right away), compared with the band’s almost proverbial habit of ambitiously contrasting songs with the symphonic bombast of orchestral arrangements.
All this probably won’t sit entirely well with the band’s hardened traditional fans, who look for progressive elements at all costs, but that takes nothing away from how excellent this record is. Simple as that. A small stylistic correction, without sacrificing a shred of your artistic uniqueness, is always a highly welcome thing, and it can always serve anyone trying such an “experiment” as a healthy imprint proving the authenticity of the band’s growth through its evolution. On “X” the flinty Danish symphonic steelworkers pulled off exactly that, and fully. The collision of the band’s trademarks with a high degree of captured melodic catchiness stands out strongly in The Well. It strings together a sequence of sudden atmospheric turns with a light veil of unpredictability, for which the superior, playful passing of lead motifs between keyboards and guitars is “to blame”, and which Boals ties into effective compactness with well-crafted melodic vocal lines. The loveliest moment of solemnity, excellent lead melodies and gripping atmospheric build-up, though, is captured in The Last Leaf.
It’s precisely this partial simplification of the arrangements that puts the guitar phrases in the spotlight on one side, and Mark Boals’s vocal performance on the other. In a contrasting position, of course. Mark Boals, who already proved through his work on Malmsteen’s studio albums that he’s completely at home in the kind of arranging Royal Hunt favor too, approaches “X” less “carefully” (with less control), and much more loosely. This time his excellent, melodically clean and extremely explosive, powerful, authoritative voice is defined even more clearly across the album. You can really feel that Boals is a big student of Ronnie James Dio. His performance is exceptional, and it’s often his vocal that gives individual songs that added value lifting them to their optimal effect, when it comes to chasing the desired mood. Boals fully shines on this album and often takes the lead over the rest of the album’s instrumentalists!
Given that “X” keeps Royal Hunt’s trademark hallmarks, the simplified arrangements make it sound retro-rock. Throughout the songs, the influences of classic rock bands and their pioneering work shine through again and again, such as, say, Rainbow, in person and in deed (the song Army Of Slaves or later Back To The Square One, as well as the closing Falling Down). At the same time, that veil is kept which constantly hints that any given passage might, any moment now, spill over into some progressively spiced-up trickery. Of course, I’m talking about the lively middle instrumental passages, brilliant in their handling of keyboard and guitar solos. Complex structure alternates with the more melodic (more ear-friendly form), and a high degree of compatibility is kept throughout this back and forth.
Shadowman boasts an extremely cunning, gradually building development of the song, which opens innocently on a polka rhythm and stuns with the seasoned sharpness of the instrumentalists. It’s a song with an exceptionally dramatic turn of events that doesn’t lose its solemn touch for a second. Boals then brings the song to an atmospheric “crescendo” in the closing refrain. Excellent instrumental “madness” is conjured up in Blood Red Stars too, where we witness an opening three-minute instrumental of a wildly raging storm of giant swells, conjuring up all the fury of the sea!
The songs are, once again, of course, furnished with choir singing from the regular crew that Andersen and company always invite into the studio. Simple as that. You can’t miss the characteristically sounding harmonies of the choir singing, which give Royal Hunt their special recognizable stamp.
On this album Andersen partly carried out that quiet “wicked” threat revealed in an interview for RockLine in 2008, when he said that he had to replace the bassist first. An ever-moody musician who is half Georgian on his mother’s side and half Danish on his father’s, which is why his permanently fiery temperament is no surprise, and because of it the lineup of Royal Hunt has in the past proven about as stable as last year’s snow, he replaced bassist Per Schelander (House Of Shakira) with newcomer Andreas Passmark (Rob Rock, Divinefire, Narnia).
The album “X” is rarely stocked on the shelves of European stores, since the distribution reach of Scarlet Records, the label it came out on, is much weaker than that of the well-established Italian label Frontiers Records, which released its predecessor. That’s a real shame, because “X” is an excellent album and a special one in Royal Hunt’s discography. After it, Mark Boals said goodbye to the band, and D.C. Cooper returned to it. But that’s another story.
“X” is an album where the band pulled off the transition to simpler arrangements, and in return the songs gained an element of melodic hookiness and compactness, sparkling in a few exceptionally well-composed lead melodies that instantly win over the ear worm. At the same time, Royal Hunt kept all the bravura of crossfire solo trickery, and kept a complex structure in which they know how to maintain a red thread and, step by step, keep the listener hooked with a plasma of unpredictable developments. “X” is therefore a more accessible album, and as such it will surely win over fans of melodic rock too, those of you who demand clearly highlighted melody with less or no complication. Personally, I’d also recommend “X” as a test album to anyone who doesn’t know the band yet.
Lineup
Mark Boals – vocals
Andr̩ Andersen Рkeyboards, guitar
Marcus Jidell – guitar, cello
Andreas Passmark – bass guitar
Allan Sørensen – drums
Studio musicians:
Kenny Lubcke – backing vocals
Maria McTurk – backing vocals
Henrik Brockmann – backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Erik Rosenqvist – woodwinds, accordion
Patricia Skovgaard – violin
Gertrud Mogelgaard – backing vocals
Michelle Raitzin – additional vocals
Production
Royal Hunt
Tracklist
01. Episode X (Arrival)
02. End Of The Line
03. King For A Day
04. The Well
05. Army Of Slaves
06. Shadowman
07. Back To Square One
08. Blood Red Stars
09. The Last Leaf
10. Falling Down
11. Episode X (Departure)
12. Sixth Sense*
*…bonus track for the European market
