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Vicious Crusade > The Unbroken > Reviews
Vicious Crusade - The Unbroken

Getting it right - 89%

UCTYKAH, January 15th, 2009

I heard "Forbidden Tunes" first and found it to be too slick. Having listened to "The Unbroken" later on, I was glad my intuition did not deceive me. This is the definitive work for the band: a damn near perfect mixture of European melo-death and power metal base wrapped in a colorful folk and gothic mantle.

One good reason this disc reigns over "Forbidden Tunes" is that it still shows some teeth, or maybe the band just did not have enough funds to get into some super modern state-of-the-art studio. Either way, not all sharp edges have been smoothed out yet on "The Unbroken". Death metal inspired screams still show up periodically and production is not completely polished. The guitars maintain a fair dosage of grit and crunch (nothing brutal, you understand, but not manicured from head to toes either), thus creating a proper contrast to the diverse melodic palette. Every other aspect here is structured "in proportion" to the maximum effect, be it the economical and non-intrusive use of keyboards, vocal interplays involving pseudo-operatic and folksy female vocals, or the impeccable balance between heavier riffing and torrents of melodic leads.

The band successfully manage to tackle their complex melodic tasks with guitar use alone, without a violin that was introduced on "Forbidden Tunes" or keyboards that play a strictly supporting role on this album. Perhaps using a more modest arsenal sometimes ends up stimulating the creative prowess. But of course the songwriting itself stands firmly on its own two feet and avoids any really overt mainstream forays. Big names like SKYCLAD, BLIND GUARDIAN, CRUACHAN and THERION could all serve as points of influences here, but the band came up with such high quality material that comparisons are not really necessary. Even the lyrics are very literate, written in fluent English, something that cannot be said of all bands in the region. The inlay photos show the band members trying their darnest to look like a bunch of cool hipsters, but who really cares when the music is this good.

It would be too bad if the hipster virus completely overtakes the band, but it certainly would not be a surprise. Given their commercial potential, it seemed they could be the biggest metal import from Belarus, eclipsing ZNICH and maybe even GODS TOWER (who themselves started out so great and then so ingloriously faded away), but that did not happen, not yet anyway. Regardless, consciously or not VICIOUS CRUSADE performed a hard balancing act on "The Unbroken" and then immediately started crossing the lines. It is unlikely that they could have taken any other trajectory.