After a tour with groove metal supergroup HellYeah, Holy Grail have released their second full length album, Ride The Void. The album follows
similar suite to their 2010 debut Crisis
in Utopia, but slightly changes its sound even further away from a
nostalgia metal album, particularly with slightly minimized harmonizing vocals
(which the debut had a lot of). Otherwise the musical structure is fairly
similar.
Just like any good metal album, we begin with a two-minute
instrumental, Archeus, which sounds
like it belongs to the soundtrack of walking down the road to hell, which is
probably the point. The doom metal sound changes immediately when Bestia Triumphans kicks in with its
super fast double bass kicks and fast and showy metal riffs as well as a few guttural
screams heard throughout. This song starts the album on its intentional speed
metal pace.
Dark
Passenger keeps the pace of the album to any heavy metal fans delight,
this time maintaining a more galloping sound. Just like so many of the songs on
the album, as the listener is sure to find out quickly, the song is reliant on
drummer Tyler Meahl and his
impressive bass drum capabilities. The albums pace continues to slow ever so
slightly in to Bleeding Stone. This
song sounds very much like a classic metal song, thanks to James Paul Luna’s harmonized vocals heard constantly throughout the
song as well as harmonized guitar playing for the guitar solo. Take It To The Grave follows a similar
pace and somewhat lacks the complexity that most other songs from the album
have. Even its guitar solo, taking full advantage of the fact that the band has
two terrific guitarists in Alex Lee and
Eli Santana simplifies things a bit,
going back and forth between the two as they play well thought out but not so
complex guitar solos. Crosswinds has
a similar pace as well, but this song sounds more similar to that of a thrash
metal song.
The title track
shows some metal clichés, but that is to be expected. It starts off with an
acoustic guitar and a string section in the background...but we all know what
to expect from a speed metal album such as this one; the acoustic intro lasts
only temporarily before the song blasts in to another metal song that crosses
thrash with speed metal, keeping the pace somewhere between fast songs like
Bestia Triumphans and slightly slower songs like Bleeding Stone. Sleep of Virtue also starts off on a
slightly softer note, this time using electric guitars rather than acoustic,
but then blasts in to a double bass drum attack. Even though this song has a
hell of a chorus, the structure of the song just starts to sound the same by
this point in the album.
Silence the
Scream luckily changes the bands attitude just a bit. This song
starts off somewhat like a doom metal song, a little slower, simple yet heavy
rhythms in the background as a killer guitar riff plays over top. And even
though the song picks up, it still is one of the slowest paced song on the
album, giving a much needed change for the listener. The next track, The Great Artifice is also among the
slower songs on the album, and follows a more metalcore sound in terms of how
it goes back and forth from fast and dynamic to slow and powerful. John even
does one of his rare guttural screams at points of the song.
The band takes the album home in expected fashion; a minute
long acoustic instrumental called Wake
Me When It’s Over which leads in to one last metal song for listeners to
remember called Rains of Sorrow.
This song is the slowest paced song on the album, but the band makes up for it
by turning up the distortion ever so slightly. This is a very good conclusion
to the album because rather than concentrating on fast complex guitar riffs or
brain concussing drum beats, the band concentrates on the music. Not to say
they haven’t done so throughout the album, but this is the most musically
intelligent song on the entire album, and it truly leaves the listener wanting
more.
What impresses me is the guitar playing on the album. Both
Alex and Eli show their capabilities to their maximum at many points, in terms
of their speed, but they don’t completely show off these capabilities. They use
fast guitar riffs and solos when the moment calls for them, but don’t shy away
from simplifying things every now and then. As an album in whole, it is a
collection of metal not commonly heard nowadays. I would compare it at times to
something by 70’s/80’s metal band Riot
in their speed metal days (with the lead vocals even sounding like Riot’s first
singer Guy Speranza at times
throughout the album). It definitely doesn’t take much influence from modern
metal bands, yet has all the possibilities to appeal to modern metal fans.
ALBUM HIGHLIGHT
“Too Decayed To Wait” – Being, for the
most part, a speed metal album, the highlight of the album has to be one that
shows the bands capability to combine speed with talent. No better song shows
this than Too Decayed To Wait. It starts off with one of the fastest guitar
riffs you ever heard. By the time you get to the middle of the song, when the
pace completely slows down, you wonder “wow, how did it get to this”. The
transitions between the different paces of a song just over four minutes in
length is simply too impressive and must be heard to be believed.
FINAL RATING
8 (Out of 10)
Track List:
1.
|
"Archeus"
(instrumental)
|
2:15
|
2.
|
"Bestial
Triumphans"
|
5:48
|
3.
|
"Dark
Passenger"
|
4:11
|
4.
|
"Bleeding
Stone"
|
4:20
|
5.
|
"Ride
the Void"
|
4:30
|
6.
|
"Too
Decayed to Wait"
|
4:12
|
7.
|
"Crosswinds"
|
4:07
|
8.
|
"Take
It to the Grave"
|
3:49
|
9.
|
"Sleep
of Virtue"
|
4:49
|
10.
|
"Silence
the Scream"
|
5:29
|
11.
|
"The
Great Artifice"
|
3:49
|
12.
|
"Wake
Me When It's Over" (instrumental)
|
1:15
|
13.
|
"Rains
of Sorrow"
|
4:32
|
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