Crimson Shadows "Glory On The Battlefield" is an interesting album in respect that it has an unusual blend of melodic death and power metal. The best way I can describe their sound is Children Of Bodom meets DragonForce. The band definitely has talent and they play their songs with an intense passion, however they fall short do to the lack of originality. Each of the songs tends to lean towards one style and in the end it just comes off as a hodgepodge album catering to too broad of an audience.
The song that had initially got me to buy the album was "Beyond The Mountain Wasteland"(It shouldn't come as any surprise that this is the song that sounds most like DragonForce.) The song is actually very reminiscent of DragonForce's predecessor Demoniac and their album "The Fire And The Wind". I imagine its what DragonForce could have sounded like had they stuck with the harsh vocals. If the rest of the album had sounded like this it would have sat better with me given my preference to speed/power metal. This was actually the kind of thing I was looking for when first got into metal back in 2006.(DragonForce's "Inhuman Rampage" was the first album I had ever bought.) But alas "Beyond The Mountain Wasteland" is the only song on the album that really captures the fun silly kind of "Epic" power metal DragonForce plays. "Kingdom Of Ale" is a close second but it just didn't grab me.
Most of the album still has the bits that sound like DragonForce, but is structured more like the kind of galloping power metal similar to 3 Inches Of Blood mixed with melodic death metal. The main vocal style is the typical harsh vocals herd in most melodic death metal and some black/death metal bands and at parts more of a weak sounding death growl bordering on pig squeal. There are clean vocals at times mostly used on the chorus lines. In some parts it starts to sound a lot like metalcore which is very off-putting to me. Where it really gets to me though is the slow chugging brutal death metal like breakdown in "Quest For The Sword", I really hate that stuff and throwing it in just completely ruins the song for me. It just comes off as the band trying to show how EXTREME!!! they are.
Lyrically the songs are all related to an overall theme of a Lord Of The Rings style fantasy war. All the songs are vary basic and don't really have a lot of depth to them. It all revolves around drinking, fighting, brotherhood, and longing for home all dealt with in a very unpoetical manner. It will appeal to teenagers looking for some metal about war or good background noise for playing video games, but it lacks substance to hold appeal to an older audience.
Overall the album wasn't terrible but really not my taste. The band is still fairly new and still might be trying to find their sound so I would keep an eye on them. They may just turn into one of those melodic death metal bands that eventually regresses into a very mainstream sounding metalcore/deathcore band but you never know, we just have to wait and see.
(I give "Glory On The Battlefield" a 2.5 out of 5.)
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