Their second album since the sad departure of ZP Theart, It continues the tradition of being frickin' amazing! I have to admit, their new guy, Marc Hudson, is pretty dang good.
The first three tracks: The Game, Tomorrow's Kings, and No More continue to be what I call "standard Dragonforce." It's fast, it's loud, it sounds pretty much like all the rest. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the songs are growing on me like they usually do, but with a new album, I expect something new.
Fortunately the next few songs of the album deliver the "new." Three Hammers, while not nearly as awesome as Cry Thunder from their previous album, is still fantastic.
Symphony of the Night (no, really) just made me all sorts of squee. First of all, it's got harpsichord and organ (which won me over right there) and has a fairly Rhapsody of Fire feel to it, and a definite "Castlevania" feel, while still being very much Dragonforce.
The Sun is Dead gets the award for "If you hadn't told me this was a Dragonforce song I wouldn't have guessed it was." It's not bad at all, it just has more of a Progressive Rock feel than Heavy Metal.
Defenders, while having a similar feel to "Standard Dragonforce" gets a special mention for having a chord progression extremely similar to Heart of the Storm from the previous album.`
The other complaint you'll hear about Dragonforce other than "it all sounds the same" is that it's "video game music." Now this is usually said in reference to the fact that playing the songs is "impossible" outside of a studio. Not only is this blatantly untrue (Twilight Dementia might have something to say about that) but it's insulting to dismiss it out of hand.
Anyway, my point with all this is that Extraction Zone at one point during the bridge literally turns into video game-esque beeps and boops. It's hilarious.
City of Gold is actually another song that sounds pretty much like any other Dragonforce song. Not much else to really say about it.
Ring of Fire is pretty much everything you would expect from Dragonforce doing a cover on the Johnny Cash classic. It's not like when Blind Guardian does Surfin USA or when Hammerfall does My Sharona, it doesn't even try to imitate the original. It's very much the Dragonforce version of Ring of Fire. It's also the first Cover Dragonforce has done on their non-"Special Edition" albums.
Speaking of: I did buy the Special Edition for this album. I don't really have anything to say about any of the bonus tracks; nothing really that stands out, other than You're not alone being very much the "rock ballad" of the album. And the fact that Galactic Astro Domination may seem familiar:
So yeah, if you're a Dragonforce fan, pick up this album. It's worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment