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› Benedictum – Seasons Of Tragedy
Out Now
Okay. Imagine Dio. Cross him with ‘Low’ (1994) –era Testament, then slap in a chick who shrieks like one of the god damn Nazgul. If you don’t know what a Nazgul is, this probably isn’t your kind of band. Benedictum broke out of the USA a year or two back with ‘Uncreation’ (2006) and it rocked many socks, despite a very questionable guitar solo on an otherwise excellent rendition of Black Sabbath’s ‘Heaven & Hell’. Cranking it up a notch, is ‘Seasons Of Tragedy’, with more chesting beating, hair waving anthems.
This is one of the heaviest traditional metal albums I’ve heard in a long time. The thrash and even a couple of death and black metal elements rear their head, but it’s essentially an album full of Dio anthems if you gave it a chain gun and several menacing tattoos. The demented cries of ‘Shell Shock’ blow you away, and the following fist raiser ‘Burn It Out’ let the album fly off to a tremendous start, complete with tight double kicks and muted riffage. American riffage at that, which tends to focus on giving us a background rhythm for the vocals as opposed to any kind of melody or groove for the most part. As they’re a band that draws influence from several very clearly European guitarists (Blackmore, Iommi et al), the songs that they write suffer slightly from this kind of style.
However, things do continue very nicely, with the surprisingly groove-tastic (contrary to the previous paragraph) ‘Beneath The Solace’ and ‘Beast In The Field’. After a very strong start, the next couple of tracks are slightly forgettable, but any lacklustre songwriting, including a lukewarm cover of Accept’s ‘Balls To The Wall’, is made up for in the closer, ‘Seasons Of Tragedy’ which remedies almost all sins. The one that remains is that I don’t have the cover of ‘Catch The Rainbow’ (which totals the Dio covers to three) on my version of the LP, but it’d be pretty hard to muck it up, as Veronica Freeman has demonstrated she is more than competent at both softer and more aggressive vocals.
If you’re looking something to give you a jolt up the arse, this could very well be it.
7/10
Alex
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