Oooookaaaay Reverend….
This is both weird and more than a little creepy in places. A minute into what has built up into a pretty cool epic/power metal song ‘Leave A Little Room’ , suddenly we drop into half spoken word section which sounds unsettlingly like Roky Erickson. And that kind of voice immediately makes you listen to the words aaaand…. the doors fly off and you suddenly feel quite disturbed. The singer, The Reverend Tim Tom Jones, a man suited and booted and with a neat tie, a neater comb over and trim beard (no really) sings of taking his flaming sword and pierced your frigid heart again. And again. And again. With the glory and ecstasy of something he calls ‘tapping the conduit’. The thing is this is a fantastic bit of power metal, with notes of Blue Oyster Cult in the melody and some amazing vocal dexterity.
And it gets weirder and creepier and the songs remain of excellent quality.
So; what we have here is a strange bit of schtick. This is the fictional Reverend, as noted’, the charismatic leader of some pseudo xtian compound cult with his doublespeak and mystical psychobabble digging into the heads of his flock/cult/brainwashed members/children of the cult. You know the sort of thing that the ATF end up looking at way too late. That kind of thing.
That or, as at least one other review assumed; they are serious (though with three members/ex-members of also Boise based medieval black metal band Weald And Woe I can’t see it. And when you see the images of the band neither will you).
But it is done so straight faced it genuinely can get a little disturbing how on close to the knuckle this is in places.
But, man the songs. Prog tinged for sure but By Fire And Sword are pretty spectacular in the song-writing department.
This album has a bright but gentle production. The melodies are super melodic, the beats scamper along and just little the way with hooks casually tossed out by amazing guitar runs and tight tempo changes. And the dirty Rev with his flaming sword has a voice that can soar or rattle out fast lyrics without missing a beat, croon softly of bring that sword of righteous retribution down with the holy power of the Conduit.
Take ‘Tap The Conduit’ (still sounds like something you need a locked bedroom door and a box of Kleenex for to me). The soft, rhythmic vocals just slide into a sleek, perfect croon as the riff rumbles softly, building as the voice rises up on the power of the Conduit… “In the end all we really have is glory, love and light..” All those promises of holy perfection, attaining the perfect level, all the good cult things. Which (I am sure quite deliberately) goes into a harder, denser riff of ‘Tithe (The Money Song)’ and the sermon to ‘please dear Reverend take me away’ ‘and you must tithe and sacrifice your lives..’ The song has such a perfect movement in atmosphere from the promise of melodic, rising joy and attainment and then drops the musical hammer of what they must give in return; obedience, all possessions, life.
We get the full cult programming here in songs. ‘Mind Body And Soul (Total War)’ is the creepy pastor warning against those who would try to tell you he is mad and corrupting. ‘The Flood’ is the coming apocalypse. And the final song ‘Dear Reverend (Please Take My Hand)’ is an absolute barnstormer of utter capitulation.
Musically this has an interesting sound that seems to dip into Slough Feg here and there, with a weird pinch of Sonata Arctica with the sudden surges of slick melody. Just it has hidden teeth aplenty. It seems to sit in a melange of things like the mighty Eternal Champion on one hand and the smooth power metal of Unleash The Archers and on to Sonata Arctica and Kamelot. It seems to have an instinctive grasp of not but tempo changes but how to rise up into those chest bursting sections of pure released melody where you know the crowd will try to sing along too. As I have said already more than once though the dexterity of the vocals is outstanding – They are not great air raid siren, belting out like a sonic cannon. This is a prog metal voice, with all the expression and fast tongued perfect tone you could wish for. They can almost convince you of, well, the Conduit.
I have no idea where they go after this, as they can’t pull this off twice. It will get old very, very quickly if they do I think. But with a band name that doesn’t have to connect with this concept I’m sure that anyone imaginative to pull this off have more than a few schemes cooking for the compound followers.
But what they have delivered here is a weird concept album full of great power metal singalongs and great musicianship and outstanding vocals. Give it a listen and worry about how anyone could think this is anything but a very, very straight faced satire on US Christian Cults…
Frankly, it’s a bit stunning. I’ll knock off a point for the instrumental which is a bit ‘filler’ for me and extends the album by five minutes too much. But other than that…
Damn.
But I ain’t tapping no conduit.
(8.5/10 Gizmo)
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