Valkyrian Music

Holy Dragons
Zerstorer
6th November
Power Metal
Released via Pitch Black Records

Holy Dragons are a power metal band from Kazakhstan. Founded in 1992, since their beginning to the present day, the main musical direction for the group is that the band sticks to the style of the eighties. The band has done 12 albums including their most recent one, Zerstorer.

After a somewhat quite and subdued first track, Voices of Lie, the album comes at you full force in the second track Dooms Day Angels at a very fast pace. When the vocals came in I can’t help but listen closely to the singer’s voice as he sounds very familiar – a bit  like Oscar Donjack from Hammerfall. It’s a very nice song to have opening the album has a few very nice guitar solos in the middle that will just want to make you do some air guitar to this track.

Man Who Saved the World picks up right where the second track ended, beginning with a somewhat subdued start on an acoustic guitar then kicking in with a fast paced tempo of drums and guitar and those Hammerfallesque vocals that I still can’t get that out of my mind. Again it’s a nice, catchy track with some very nice solos in the middle of the track. There’s a little bit where it sounds like the songs being played backwards before it comes at you again loud and fast for the final two minutes.

Project A119 is track has all the things I’ve already talked about and the added use of backing vocals add to the slickness of the vocals on this track. The guitar solo on this track is my personal favourite part of the track with just the way it sounds, making me try to tap my finger in time with its truly amazing sound.

Mutual Assured Destruction starts in a similar fashion to one of the previous track. I get the feeling this album could of been written and recorded by DragonForce  if I hadn’t already known it was Holy Dragon. Somewhat quiet backing vocals say the words “nuclear fire” on each chorus. The vocals again are good however I struggled on this track to understand what the lyrics were.

After a staggered introduction using the play pause play pause technique, Cuband Crisis begins to build up before finally getting going with a solo on both guitar and drums before the vocals finally come in properly. This is one track I actually enjoy. In the middle where the song changes to Insomnia, there’s a use of an organ which gives it a creepy haunting feel as though people could be coming to where a bomb has just gone off and there looking at the devastation it has left in this wake. This in turn brings in the acoustic guitar and some very haunting vocals before the song come round full circle and repeats its introduction.

F.R.A.G.I.L.E is a somewhat shorter track than has been used up to this point, a nice calm relaxing song with the acoustic guitar and the use of a keyboard combine well to give the listener just a little time to let their ears recover before coming back in again loud hard and fast for NORAD Alert. NORAD Alert is another fast paced opening with a very powerful guitar solo at the start, which leads into the vocals. Mainly on the chorus rather than the verses which I think it should always sound better. More catchy solos in the middle of the track before the vocals come back in for the chorus for the final three times before fading out to the sound of what I assume to be an alarm sounding an incoming nuclear attack.

 The Day After is the shortest track on the album making use of the acoustic guitar, giving the listener a chance to let their ears have a break.

HL 7442 begins very heavy on the drums which is a nice change – it’s good to finally be able to hear some more of the vocals on this track compared to other tracks on this album. The way the lyrics in this song talk about war and how some soldiers were not coming home again with a chorus is poetically done. I really like how this sounds within the context of the song its self.  Yet again. amazing solo work by Jurgen Thunderson. I really like this guy’s work and the sound he produces in terms of the vocals on this track – As I said before, it’s nice that you can hear what is being sang and that only helps add to how good this song really is. DEFCON 1 is the final track on this album, beginning with a very nice slow opening with use of keyboards. As the song builds up before it kicks in with the fast pace drums and wailing guitar riffs that have been present throughout the entire album. Again, you can hear the lyrics on this on which is a nice change.

I think personally for me this album Zerstorer isn’t that great while I love the guitar and drum work on this album. It’s the vocals on a lot of the tracks let it down massively, the fact you can’t understand them a lot of the time. Furthermore, I find the fact the first five to six songs sound almost exactly alike just how DragonForce sound on  their albums doesn’t help in any way at all.

3/5

Luke “GothicSpike” Smith

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This entry was posted on 30th October 2012 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Review with tags DEFCON, Dragonforce, Hammerfall, Power Metal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.