Highland Glory - From The Cradle To The Brave
Massacre Records
Power Metal
9 songs (53'50)
Release year: 2003
Massacre Records
Reviewed by Ben

Highland Glory’s debut album, From The Cradle To The Brave is a rather mixed offering. On one hand, you have a few really amazing songs that are 100% grade A, top of the line Power Metal while on the other hand you have the rest of the album which in all fairness, doesn’t offer anything at all that you haven’t heard before, and unlike some bands that play unoriginal (but inspired!) metal, the rest of the songs here are pretty unmemorable and nothing really stands out. There are a few smatterings of Celtic sounds throughout From The Cradle To The Brave, with some nice guitar lines and melodies and this makes some instances stand out in the songs. The vocals are decent but nothing spectacular though. You can tell that Jan Thore Grefstad can sing but he won’t be giving Tobias Sammet a run for his money anytime soon. The rest of the band are good, competent, and skilled musicians as well, Lars Larsen, who plays the keys as well as guitar creates some nice keyboard passages especially in the title track, and the rhythm section is solid, just like it should be. Now, onto the songs shall we?

When the opening strains of One Last Chance were being played through my stereo, I got excited. When the lovely melodies blended together in the inspiring chorus, I was singing along wholeheartedly and loving every second of this and thinking that this entire cd was gonna kick ass like this song. Truly, One Last Chance combines elements of all that is great in Power Metal, uplifting vocals, great melodies, and a good sing along chorus, with a positive type of aggression. With a start like this, my expectations were very high for the rest of the album as I was quite stoked based on the strength of the first song but to my dismay, other than a Celtic passage in Beyond The Pharao’s Curse nothing stood out. That is not to say that the songs were subpar however, it is just that there was nothing that the band could call their own in terms of blowing me away. The next amazing song is the wonderful, emotional ballad, This Promise I Swear. There is nothing contrived about this song, every note, every word comes straight from the heart and it is powerful, perhaps one of the best Power Ballads I have heard. Once again, I had a short wait until the next killer song, The Land of Forgotten Dreams (part 2), as part one was, well once again, forgettable. With a faster tempo and a much stronger chorus, part two, once again brings the level of quality of Cradle… up again. The next couple of tracks are an eight minute epic that has some good moments in it but as a whole it just doesn’t keep my attention as well as say a twenty three minute Dream Theater song can and another ballad that is relatively pretty cool, but it doesn’t hold a candle to This Promise I Swear. The album is rounded out though by the best song on here though, the title track. This has it all, it has a sweeping, gorgeous intro that makes you feel that you are standing high upon a mountain, under a dark blue sky at one with the world and at one with yourself, or if you don’t have that good of an imagination it will probably make you think of Braveheart, and a furiously fast tempo with blistering guitarwork and wonderful emotive singing. From The Cradle To The Brave (the song) is a perfect closer, and it makes you glad there’s at least one more truly killer song on the disc.

Like I said before, From The Cradle To The Brave is a mixed bag of goods. The killing songs here really are killing and I am very glad to own them and if the rest of the album was as high in quality as those songs than this would be an easy high 80’s to 90’s score. I don’t see the 68 / 100 as a bad score as this is bordering the edge of fair to very good, and I don’t see the 68 as detrimental. I see it as potential for Highland Glory to develop their style some more as they need to find their own sound, and come back with another album that will kick all of our asses.

Killing Songs :
One Last Chance, This Promise I Swear, and From The Cradle To The Brave
Ben quoted 68 / 100
Other albums by Highland Glory that we have reviewed:
Highland Glory - Forever Endeavour reviewed by Chris and quoted 90 / 100
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