We all have our favourite albums. The recordings we welcome like old friends.
For me, the
Victory 'Best Of.', from a few years back, is firmly in that category. Not least because of Herman Frank's elegantly tailored, razor clawed axework.
'Loyal To None' is Frank's "solo" debut. Solo albums are seldom that of course. Frank is joined here by vocalist, Jiotis Parcharidis, bassman Peter Pichl and Stefan Schwarzmann on drums. All four are linked inextricably through their oftime membership of
Victory,
Running Wild and Accept.
And you can tell.
Afficionados of the heavy metal genre and all its offshoots will find lots to love in this album of passionate, densely constructed, precision machined rock music.
It's full of compact choruses and self contained hooks, few of which have an initial impact, but all of which will cut and slice through the thickest of skins, given time and opportunity, and bury those hooks deep.
The opening trio,
'Moon 2', '
7 Stars' and
'Father Buries Son' are very much in the heavy metal tradition, though there's little that's theatrical or histrionic about them. They get to the point fast, make their indelible metal mark and get out again quick. An object lesson indeed.
Artists & labels usually front load the album with the better material. Conversely, 'Loyal To None' gets stronger as we make our way through the steely, thick cut riffs and the chiming, ringing axe solos, both set to a series of constantly detonating rhythms.
The album pivots on two lightning bolts of brilliance. The anthemic
'Heal Me', which shows traces of late eighties, chart troubling melodic rock, and
'Hero', a pulsing, heavy metal stomp with an apocalyptic vibe, lightened by Parcharidis's and Frank's call & response, vocal / axe sparring.
Elsewhere, the darkhearted, cranked up
'Kill The King' maintains the momentum going into side 2, with the macho, swaggeringly tough
'Bastard Legion' hurtling headlong in the direction of closing track '
Welcome To Hell'. This track is another that takes a while to grab hold, but when it does, it does so with the grip of a drowning man.
Where other, lesser bands descend into violent, cacophonous noise, Frank keeps a tight rein on the soaring choruses and outrageous solos. The result is a magnificently jagged chunk of melodicentric, pulse quickening heavy metal.
Written by
Brian Monday, May 25, 2009
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