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Raise Hell > Holy Target > Reviews
Raise Hell - Holy Target

Commendable Dissection Rip-Off - 65%

InfinityX, October 22nd, 2012

I purchased this album at my local music shop for one basic reason above all else. It was cheap. Just under five bucks for it. Definitely worth it, but I still wish it had a better payoff then this. A few songs on this album are good, some are downright great, but there's not really anything special. The band's performances are frankly excellent, especially the drumming. The songwriting is above average as well, but the album just suffers greatly from a lack of originality and a mediocre vocalist.

And I mean lack of originality. The formulas here are taken directly from Dissection's book and plugged and chugged for different results. Did you like that math metaphor? Before I got this album, I only new a little bit of Dissection and was familiar with only a few of their songs. Even with my limited knowledge of Dissection I could hear the worship, right down to the obviously forced devil worship lyrics. Seriously, the band picture on the back cover is so silly and the lyrics are about as interesting as a statistics lecture (math analogy part 2). But still, this album was good enough to get me more into Dissection, leading my beloved lady friend to get Storm of the Light's Bane as a birthday present (and many more albums, look to the future for a chain of b-day album reviews). That is probably the best plus of this album because I fucking love Dissection now.

As for the other weakness of this album, I find Nilssons' vocals adequate, but not exemplary. It doesn't hold me back from enjoying the music, but his garbled barking often comes of as a little silly and sounds like it's coming from a drunk guy. I don't find too many of his vocal lines memorable or interesting. He doesn't have any impressive shrieks or deep growls or anything special. I'd definitely rank him as a below average vocalist. The two vocal lines I tend to enjoy the most are the admittedly awesome 'TO THE CROSS YOU ARE STUCK' in Holy Target and the chorus of Red Ripper. Still, his vocals hold the band back from greatness a bit.

Now for the more positive aspects of this album. Though the riffs are generated in the aforementioned Dissection equation, some are really awesome. The melodic tremolo riffs of Raise the Devil are particularly awesome, but there is a good amount of buzzing goodness on this album that will invoke smirks on any fan of the genre. The bass is virtually inaudible except for a brief break in Raise the Devil. I think that may be for the best though, and I do not have any problems with the mix on this album. If the bass was much louder, it'd distract from the riffs and the awesome drumming.

And that is certainly what the highlight is of the album. Ekdahl fucking destroys the skins on this album. He has awesome fill after awesome fill, lightning fast blasts, and very varied, but powerful rhythms. This guy really holds the album together and I'd definitely buy future albums with him on as drummer.

Really, if this band tried a bit more on having their own band and finding a vocalist, this album may have been really good, but they didn't, so it'll have to be happy as the average knock-off it is. Jonas Nilsson did manage to write a few awesome songs on here that I will probably listen to every once in a while even after getting Dissection, but the album as a whole, though bearable and not too hard to listen to beginning to end, is just a bit over ok.

So for great drumming and some memorable riffs interspersed with silly imagery and band worship, Raise Hell's Holy Target gets a 65 out of 100 or a 3 out of 5.
Highlights:
Raise the Devil
Holy Target
The Red Ripper

Let the bullet caress the holy race - 82%

autothrall, April 30th, 2010

Raise Hell's 1998 debut album Holy Target may not seem all that extraordinary for its day, being heavily influenced by the sounds of Dissection's Storm of the Lights Bane and other melodic Swedish black metal acts like Lord Belial or Sacramentum. However, it does serve as an exception to the band's discography, as they would rather quickly shift their focus towards a fun black/thrash hybrid as soon as the sophomore effort Not Dead Yet. You could, however, trace this transformation back to the debut, because in betwixt the straight up blasting Dark Funeral frenzy and bleeding, unsubtle devotion to melodies, you'll definitely hear a speed/thrash embryo kicking at the sides of its blackened womb.

Holy Target is no exception to quality, though, and Raise Hell have long surprised me as one of those bands with every shred of potential which somehow breakthrough success has overlooked. As early as this album, the Swedes were writing fairly strong material, with a more accessible edge to it than countrymen like Dissection or Dark Funeral, and with a three-record deal through Nuclear Blast records, expectations were high. Perhaps the 'fun factor' I have always felt with this band has somehow hindered them, as they feel like a meter of 'blasphemy lite'. The lyrics feel like a representation of faux-Satanism at its worst, crafted solely to identify the band's music within a larger underground movement that could provide a built-in listenership. This air of blasphemy lends itself to a number of tracks here, like "Raise the Devil", "Superior Powers", "Legions of creeps" and "Beautiful as Fire", but the band also delves in violent death/thrash fare like serial killers and so forth. Personally, I find the Satanic elements to this record hammy, and I greatly prefer the more sexual and silly direction they take with the following album, but at least the lyrics are something once can get into.

As for the music, it's a fairly bewildering storm of serpentine storm beats and streaming chords of fell glory, more immediately catchy than Storm of the Light's Bane or Vobiscum Sathanas if lacking some of their eventual depth. "Raise the Devil" and "Holy Target" are good examples of their more ferocious, warlike melody and incessant burning of energy. The former has some outbreaks of viral Kreator-like thrash (the early bridge around :20) and the latter has a bit of a Bathory influence in its depths (Blood Fire Death era), but otherwise they both explode like abyssal artillery, lobbing fire at the wheeling circles of angels above. There are better songs, though, including "Beautiful as Fire" with riffs reminiscent of a less muddled Sabbat (UK), or the beautiful thrashing violence that sets up "Black Visions", frenetic leads streaming across the harsher barrage beneath. "The Red Ripper" breaks out into a total killer mid-paced thrashing, and both "Mattered Out" and "Superior Powers" are pure punishment glazed in severe riffing ability and Jonas Nilsson's despotic throat.

The album was mixed at Abyss Studios in Sweden by Tommy Tägtgren, and it holds up very well, the blood soaked battlefield of a timeless, metaphysical slaughter. The bass might feel somewhat subdued, but this is largely due to the razor sharp attack of the guitars and the incredible storm of Dennis Ekdahl's drumming (he's also played in Sins of Omission, Mystic Prophecy and Siebenbürgen). As for the compositions themselves, few if any truly stand out to memory, though the album is a pleasure to listen to when you seek a dependable black attack with some melody, and higher production values than many in the scene have mustered. The big label visibility and rather trendy style of this album might have made it a 'holy target' in the eyes of many an underground purist fan who would picket anything that even bordered on financial plausibility or general accessibility beyond the cult black metal crowd, but it's still a fresh blast of carnage you can enjoy alongside the other would-be giants in Dawn, Sacramentum, Mörk Gryning, The Crown and so forth.

Highlights: Beautiful as Fire, The Red Ripper, Black Visions, Holy Target

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Swedish Black/Death metal at its best. - 96%

Aoc, April 7th, 2009

If you enjoy Swedish Black/Death metal bands like Sacramentum, Dissection, Vinterland, Lord Belial, Dawn, Necrophobic or Allegiance and still have not heard this album, then you are missing out on just another fine addition to this now uniquely well defined local genre. Spite of their somewhat silly image along with the cheesy “War to Christianity” themes and song titles, this band delivers high quality metal in the vein of all the above mentioned.

Raise Hell picked up right where Sacramentum left off with their astonishing "The Coming of Chaos" album. The music is complex and dynamic showing how well these young Swedes can structure songs. All songs are extremely energetic taking the listener through blastbeats to endless doublebass along with the heaviest and catchiest riffs Sweden can deliver. Melodies are also a strong factor here, they flow elegantly throughout the entire piece without boring you or making it sound just another clone mediocre band.

The Tägtgren brother’s production is excellent. Every instrument sounds clear. The guitar work is very typical of its kind, being dynamic, uplifting and unpredictable. The vocals could have been much better since Jonas Nilsson isn’t the best choice for a vocalist to this type of act, and that is why I am not giving this album a perfect score. Regardless of the somewhat weak vocals, this underrated album isn’t far at all from being one of the best of its kind.