Proper heavy metal. You don’t come across it much these days. I was looking through some old rock magazines of my dad’s the other day, and back when, “heavy metal” was a really broad umbrella. Once we started to sub-genre categorise our music, it seemed that there was a rush to try and have a separate niche for everything – everything that is except for good old-fashioned heavy metal.
Well, if like me you are partial to a bit of classic heavy metal, I think you’re going to enjoy “III”, which is – and try to keep up with me on this – the third album by London based metal merchants The Heretic Order. I was sure I’d caught them live before, but now I’m not so sure, because I think I would have remembered more clearly. Take the classic metal tropes of having memorable riffs, a powerful and driving rhythm section and clean, spooky vocals, and you’re along the right paths. Stylistically, I’ve got a really cool Mercyful Fate vibe from The Heretic Order, with a penchant for the macabre and great vocals courtesy of “Lord Ragner Wagner”. Elsewhere, the axe work, complete with some really tasty soloing, are courtesy of “Count Marcel La Vey”, the four string bass wrangling via “Connor Ormagoden” and drum thrashing from “Doctor Pain”.
Like bands of yesteryear, there is something very earnest and straight faced about The Heretic Order’s delivery, even though everything also tends towards the dramatic. Think of it perhaps as the metal equivalent of a Hammer Horror film; yes, it is slightly daft here and there, but it’s also classic and classy. In terms of songwriting, these are songs that tend towards the mid tempo and the atmospheric, as with the menacing crunch of “Dark Shadows”, or full of gothic menace such as with the truly epic “Spirits of the Night”. I also have to give them huge props for their only cover version on the record, a rousing rendition of an overlooked (but one of my favourite) Motorhead tracks, “Deaf Forever”. In terms of production, this album nestles nicely against other modern-classic metal classics, such as the beefy delivery of Grand Magus or the clarity of Arkham Witch.
Classic metal is not dead – it’s just been sleeping. With this release, The Heretic Order could be the future of the past. Nice one.
(8.5/10 Chris Davison)
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