The Hunter

Persuader is a band that stands apart from their peers. Euro styled power metal is so often watered down to the point of being overly flowery. Uninspired efforts are like a virulent plague, infecting the genre to a point that causes would-be fans to simply move on. To explore the genre of European power metal, one must sift through the trash with the patience of a Buddhist, or the persistence of a stalker. Sweden appears to be a Mecca of power metal bands, offering a smaller mound of trash to sort through for winners. Persuader is a shining beacon of hope, casting rays of light through the fog of mediocrity.

The Hunter is the band’s debut effort; and while it doesn’t quite have the heaviness of Persuader’s later efforts, it remains a classic on the merit of songwriting and absence of weaker elements. The Hunter is rooted in speed and slightly restrained aggression. Tinges of prog metal can be found within, and a few of the melodies have a healthy slice of cheese. The complete package has an early Blind Guardian flavor (Follow the Blind), with more emphasis on Running Wild style, catchy choruses. The Hunter offers a satisfying amount of depth to the music, while not intruding into the territory of self-parody.

Production values are good, which is not surprising for an album of the era. The well-articulated mix offers clarity to the vocals and the instruments. The first thing a power metal fan is likely to notice is the vocals. Jens sounds similar to a gruff version of Hansi from Blind Guardian, but not an exact clone like many have stated. His vocal range is a little broader than Hansi in terms of style, but not as powerful in terms of melody. The singer flawlessly transitions between smooth melody, to blood curdling screeching in the vain of so called “melodic death metal” bands. Jens also handles rhythm guitar, and does a competent job. Drumming is of the typical power metal school, with speedy double bass and intense fills. Interestingly enough, it appears that the lead guitar player is not proficient in the art of solos. A duo of guest guitar players handles the leads on most of the songs.

“Fire at Will” opens up the album with an odd intro-nothing more than the sounds of someone surfing radio stations. Moments before annoyance sets in, the song spews forth with a tasty, speedy riff. The guest guitarist, Magnus Lindblom displays his talent in the opening solo, a melodic shred of hyper speed fret scales and sweep picking. Jens’ singing is powerful through the entire song, complimented by a riot vocal chorus and tastefully fitting drum patterns. The title track-one of the best songs on the album slows the pace down a notch. Once again, a fantastic vocal display carries the tune, which is carried to powerful climax by the edgy, yet epic chorus. Unlike some bands of the genre, Persuader do not (at least on this album) differ to a style of layered vocal tracks to provided drive for their choruses. “Heart and Steel” is a masterpiece of catchy groove and cheese, showing that the strengths of Persuader include power metal of the standard formula. The chorus begs to be a sing along, and Lindblom again displays his talent in the solo department.

The Hunter lacks any substandard tracks, which is quite an accomplishment in the power metal world. All of the songs on the album are beyond the norm in terms of quality. The only thing “special” about this album is the band itself. Persuader rises to the challenge when it comes to raising the bar for European power metal, and does so using nothing more than tools of any great band: songwriting and tasteful delivery. No gimmicks of any kind are found on The Hunter, but Persuader needs none to be successful.

(review was edited to reflect my new rating system)

So a few years ago a friend of mine burned a copy of this album for me. He told me Persuader is a very good Blind Guardian-esque band. And upon listening to this, I gotta say that he's partly right. They're quite BG-esque, but not VERY good.

So let's start with the production. Overall, not very good. The guitar tone is kind of annoying, and it sounds raw in a bad way. The bass is too high in the mix, which normally wouldn't be a problem for me except that the bass lines aren't particularly good, and it distracts from some good riffs.

Now, the style of this band is semi-unique. As mentioned before, they sound a lot like Blind Guardian. Specifically, they're older stuff, except that Persuader has a bit more thrash in their sound. This manifests mostly in the singing. Jens Carlson, who is known for sounding a lot like Hansi Kursch, has a more raspy voice than Hansi. And often it works. The chorus of As You Wish is pure pleasure to listen to, and is a perfect example of when Jens uses his voice correctly. The beginning of The Hunter is also another good singing moment. But sadly, Jens tries to hard to sing like Hansi sometimes, and ends up sounding like crap. Overall, Persuader's biggest weakness is that they try too hard to sound like Blind Guardian. They could have a fairly unique style, but they seem to stuck with their influences. Ah well, debuts are rarely the most unique and new things. It usually takes a couple albums for a band to truly find its sound.

Anyways, on to the actual songs themselves. The stand out songs are Fire At Will, As You Wish, The Hunter, and Escape. Fire At Will starts out kind of strange, as you hear the sound of radio stations being changed. The Hunter also has a weird beginning with some dialogue between a monster and some woman. I'm not really sure what it's about, but it creats a kind of cool ominous mood. The songs that don't stand out simply are the ones that suffer the most from the copying of Blind Guardian's style.

Overall, this is a nice album, although not spectacular, and if the idea of thrashy power metal (just don't think it sounds like Iced Earth's early works) appeals to you, then it should be fun for you.

This album is delicious.

Being an ex-fan of power metal (purely because there is nothing left worth listening to), I have still, to this day, never stopped absolutely loving this album. By far being Persuader’s best effort to this day, it has everything I love about originality and technique in Power Metal (probably because these elements are so rare in the power metal scene).

Lead guitars are by a Swedish session guitarist named Magnus Lindbloom, and it has been missed by most reviewers/listeners that this guy has been one of the key elements to the ball-stomping superiority of this album (It’s odd that this album has been on the database for a long time, yet, I was the first one to tip off the Mods that this piece of information was missing). His very swift guitar work, with tremolo-picked arpeggio sweeps, absolutely gob-bobbling legato technique, and melodic licks that make you want to drop your pants in an instant.

I bow to this fellow in shame and admiration. He’s a marvel, that’s for sure.

The rest of the music is, of course, mastered by the bastard-children of the band. And damn they know how to write good power metal, not to mention their ability to execute it well.

Jens Carlsson’s voice kicks ass, pure and simple. His vocal range is outstanding and matches the fast-tempo head-smashing riffs, bass and drum kicks. Being accentuated by over-rhythm riffing by Pekka (replaced by Emil Norberg the next year), Jens’ vocals will send chills down your spine. Being able to sing very high at times, when needed, and also having a very pleasant mid-range in the majority of the heavy parts in this album.

In this album, of course, Jens was doing Rhythm guitar as well as singing, and it’s apparent that as well as being an insane singer, he’s also a fucking great song-writer.

The drums and bass in this album are very convenient for a power metal album. It’s not your typical BASS-BASS-BASS-SNARE-BASS-BASS-BASS-SNARE-BASS-BASS-BASS-SNARE-EPIC-SYNTHS drumming, which is consistent in pretty much every power metal release in existence. No, instead, what this guy (Efraim Juntunen) decides to do is actually deviate from the default Power Metal drumming style (HOLY SHIIIIT!) and actually play some groovy, catchy beats that help keep the song structures and riffing on their feet and stand solid.

Actually, about the song structures: For the age bracket of this group of guys, the song personalities and structures in this album are actually surprisingly mature and well-balanced; with good elements of Power Metal without the copious amounts of cheese, and quite a frequent musical reference to Heavy Metal, and sometimes traditional 80’s Metal. A very good variety of styles, executed without the cheese and especially without the fucking unoriginality.

But I digress.

If you’re a fan of some winners such as Hibria and the like, then you’ll be in desperate need of this album.

Do yourself a favour.