Battle Raider - Battle Raider
Fighter Records
Epic Heavy Metal
8 songs (45'00")
Release year: 2017
Reviewed by Alex

The cover art from Mexico City Battle Raider on their eponymous debut should have been a dead giveaway. Jumping at you as if straight from a Robert Jordan novel, the music you need to anticipate is epic heavy metal of old order. Battle Raider indeed fulfills the promise of their cover delivering energetic and archaic sounding material.

Imagine old Manowar disposition, some Slough Feg and Ironsword spirit, with an attempt at old Crimson Glory vocals. You heard it right, the lead singer is going for Midnight territory with a highest possible pitch and crazy vocal modulations to boot. At the same time Battle Raider loads up their production towards the bottom end creating nice contrast with high vocals (title track). Guitars sound on the album is booming, as if rising from the pits and bass is very snappy (Flying Fingers, Atlanteans of Gold), supporting Battle Raider’s gallops.

Heroic and epic feel is the norm on the album (Commander), yet the band tries to color many an image so the moods and mental pictures shift from song to song. Hard Flyer is more muscular thrash with a double bass driven chorus, Atlanteans of Gold injects evil and occult feeling into their barbarian atmosphere, A Sioux Prayer delivers on the title using some unusual native percussion sounds and patterns, while Early Fantasy and Commander take epic storytelling to its extreme.

From time to time the band engages into sprawling solos, which are a bit self-indulgent, become a touch meandering while breaking the otherwise high energy flow (Hard Flyer, title track). On some cuts solo work is much better integrated contributing to a penultimate feeling (Atlanteans of Gold, Early Fantasy). At the minimum, it shows Battle Raider desire not to settle and to play something stale. Instrumental Tartan Piper Alpha, after mysterious amp blowing intro, allows them to indulge all they want, from muscular gallop, to interesting tempo changes and sounds, and is a perfect example of the band trying to inject their own vision into the genre.

If you like the art often perpetuated on Shadow Kingdom Records, Battle Raider is the band for you, and they are putting their own face on the music as well.

Killing Songs :
Early Fantasy, Commander, Tartan Piper Alpha
Alex quoted 78 / 100
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