Another year arrives bring the arrival of another metal scene being hastily revived from the past like some tattered denim wearing corpse. With the possible exception of the 60s psychedelic doom of Jex Thoth and Blood Ceremony, I’ve yet to see any other such revival where we are handed something other than the past hastily repackaged for any nostalgia-hungry metal fan happy to soak up more of the same rather than move forward. We’ve had hair metal, doom, thrash, dare I say it, nu-metal and now ‘traditional’ or ‘epic’ metal – where I’m finally hearing the sounds of a barrel being scraped as we are presented with a ‘revival’ of something that was really only special because it was in the past and formed the bedrock from which everything else could be built. Are you seriously telling me that someone is going to come up with anything that rivals 1980s classics like Manilla Road’s The Deluge, Heavy Load’s Death or Glory, Warlord’s Cannons of Destruction and any individual millisecond from Manowar’s first four albums?
Sure, bands like Eternal Champion should be allowed to emulate their heroes but it should always be a minority attraction, a side-show – even when that band is as good and obviously talented as Holy Martyr. Combining the folky power of Blind Guardian with the roots of Manilla Road is something fraught with danger. But the sons of Italy combine all that with a very Greek-style approach for all things rugged and heroic. Yes, it’s ridden with cliché – grandiose vocals admirably delivered by Alessandro Mereu; pillaging lyrical themes from the pages of JRR Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings; slowly chugging riffs a plenty and brimming with a vibe created in the 1980s when people didn’t know any better but now made three dimensional by the power of modern production techniques – check, check and check again. But Holy Martyr managed to distract you from the lyrics of Dol Guldor, Hobbits and spider’s webs with sombre melodies rather than anything sweetly saccharine and solos that tug on the heart strings rather than making you want to run to the top of the nearest hill shouting ‘isn’t life brilliant!’ – (the main overall difference between power metal and traditional metal, as far as I can see).
This is also pleasantly progressive and atmospheric – in fact, Darkness Shall Prevail is exemplary of good trad metal in that respect. The elusive atmosphere that I think modern bands from this genre struggle so hard to deliver, is within their grasp. Holy Martyr do a fine job of building this into a three dimensional, breathing force. That said, while the verses are strong and poetically powerful, they are sometimes let down by choruses which only managed to deliver themselves in one or two dimensional form and fall a little flat. The result is that getting to the end is a bit of a struggle despite some standout tracks – Numenor, Heroic Deeds and Born Of Hope don’t quite save this from being another album that will be clogging up the ‘very metal’ section of my collection rather than bringing the genre to life again for me in some new, meaningful way.
(7/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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