Reign in Glory

Heavy Metal Battlecry, Hail, Hail, Hail?

Well, if I tell you that it is written MANOWAR all over it, I might as well be committing a sacrilege. It just ain’t fair. To MANOWAR, of course. No one can do what MANOWAR does. Insisting on this mistake was Majesty’s misfortune in this album.

By the time you hear the first lines of Heavy Metal Battlecry you'll get my point.

Reign In Glory is just another attempt to copy MANOWAR, in which they do a fair try. But if I want to stick to the genre, I go for the originals. Of course there’s a couple of songs that can be saved from this album, such as the riffs in “Into The Stadiums” or the nice chorus in “Defender of the Brave”, but that’s it.

The band has shown potential, that’s for sure. But they didn’t have at the time, at least, an own identity. They didn’t do anything different. They didn’t innovate. There’s no difference between them and the rest of “Cover” bands that are spread all over the world.

Damn, this album gives the sensation as a lame recipe for MANOWAR. They even bothered to include some slow songs as Eric Adams did from Fighting the World on.

Lyrically speaking, thou, I believe that’s where lies the main flaw of the Album. If they tried to pass a different message, with some consistence, some actual meaning, I guess the instrumental parts would be stood out ( not ignored). But sticking to the “Fighting for Metal” message the failure is complete.

If you’re an unconditional fan of the genre, you might give a try. But if you’re sick of the same old stuff, don’t bother listening to it.

Reign In Glory is musically more varied than Sword And Sorcery. Its song writing quality is more varied too. The first half is pure joy, but then it dies as they change style from real heavy and speed metal into something more reminiscent of power metal and pseudo ballads. The album isn’t as solid as Sword And Sorcery was. I actually feel that the band has lowered its standards. This album is more polished than the predecessor.

Still the music is what you expect from a band calling themselves “true metal warriors”. Manowar is the main influence, but Virgin Steele, Wizard and Paragon have probably been influential too. This album is more keyboard-laden than their earlier records. Most of the time it’s nicely done but on a few occasions it sucks. The bonus track, Battle Hymn (Manowar cover) is the prime example of this, where they’ve put multiple shrilling keyboard-sounds in the chorus! The bonus track was by the way the reason I bought the digipak version. I find now it wasn’t worth it. This song is utterly worse than all the other tracks, mainly because of the keyboards and is not a positive addition in any sense. When setting the rating, I’ll do so not thinking of this song.

The bands biggest asset used to be Tarek’s voice. It’s powerful and emotional, if a little hoarse. His range is very limited, making his vocals without variation. Now he hasn’t got that amazing twist on his voice he had on Sword And Sorcery. It was the twist that made him real great on this album; here the lack of it makes his voice boring. The backing vocals though, actually featuring every band member except for Tarek, are better than ever. Guitars and bass, well I know it isn’t thrash or shred metal, but sure you would expect more than this? It’s not bad, not at all. It isn’t notably good or innovative either. Perhaps it’s the keyboards stealing the focus. On this album, the line-up actually features two (!) keyboardists. The drumming is perhaps the only part made the way it should be. Except for the generic power metal drumming momentsÔ, that is.

Still, my complaints aren’t as bad as they look. I’m only disappointed after listening to Sword And Sorcery. Those are catchy tunes, those are rather good tunes. This will however, not at par with its predecessor and it’s not a worthy continuation by the band. Next time I want something better, and I am not going to buy the limited version then! Reign In Glory won’t ever become a classic, but if you do like the genre the band is your band. But their other releases are better worth your money.

Germany’s true metal warriors Majesty have been on a roll since their independently-released KEEP IT TRUE in 2000, releasing 3 albums all of excellent quality in 4 years. I first came across Majesty early last year with the band’s second album, SWORD AND SORCERY, which immediately hooked me with the band.

REIGN IN GLORY delivers a second dose of true heavy metal just like the first two albums, and just about equal in quality (I find that I prefer SWORD AND SORCERY slightly over REIGN IN GLORY as my favourite Majesty). Although most listeners will draw parallels between Majesty and Manowar, especially through imagery and lyrics, it should be noted that Majesty’s traditional metal sound is not only influenced by Manowar, but also equally or greater shared by classic metal bands such as Accept, Iron Maiden, and even a little Virgin Steele.

Overall, I find the album to be slightly unbalanced, with the bulk of the fast songs coming on the first half of the album, while the second is more focused on slower epics and pseudo-ballads. The album kicks off with total fucking speed metal with “Heavy Metal Battlecry.” The opening riff is one that would make Rock n Rolf and all of Running Wild proud to hear. Then Tarek Maghary’s vocals kick in, a perfect fit for Eric Adams’ scream/growl amidst thunderous drums. Tarek’s voice adds tremendous power to each song, his commanding vocal presence actually adding to the heaviness of the album. We even have the gratuitous Manowar epic spoken word solo/interlude just before a screaming guitar solo. If the opener doesn’t get you up and headbanging, you might as well give up now. Ok, kiddies, time to get your fists pumping into the air for the anthemic “Into the Stadiums.” Here, we have the ultimate Metal paradox: true heavy metal needs no glorification as the music is self reinforcing, but how wrong can one go with yet another song singing the praises of heavy metal? This headbanger, for one, says bring it on. “Reign in Glory” is another anthem right before the galloping “Will of the Cobra.” “Reign in Glory” is another one of those brilliant speed metal songs on the album. Starting off with a nice little melodic acoustic intro, the song just fucking explodes at 36 seconds in with some furious lead/rhythm speed. My favourite song on the disc, this track alternates blistering speed with some slower but more epic choruses and full-on gallop. Right smack in the middle of the song around the 3:50 are a couple kickass extended solos building to a crescendo as the song starts to eventually wind its way back down to an acoustic outro much like the song’s beginning. At “Lord of the Damned,” the album marks a change to the slower epics much like the early Manowar epic metal. “Heroes” begins with a very Running Wild-ish intro, although the song itself is a slower battle march that is almost semi-ballad. The melodic chorus in here (Herooooo-oh-oh-oh-ohs…hehehe…yeah) sounds great; I could easily hear this one played live with a bunch of leather-clad metal warriors helping out. The album kinda peters out after this track. “Thunder in the Silence” is a misnomer, as I hear nothing at all resembling thunder in this pseudo-ballad, “Troopers of Steel” is much like the title track of the album, although the wankery about halfway through is very cool. Closing out the album is “Falcon in the Storm” at over ten minutes in length. Although this is another slow song, the song packs a lot of power to close out the album on a strong note.

All in all, the songs on REIGN IN GLORY are more varied in style than SWORD AND SORCERY, I find the previous album to be heavier and, to me, slightly more enjoyable. Still, anyone who is a fan of traditional metal in the vein of Manowar, Accept, Running Wild, Manilla Road and such will find that Majesty are one of the strongest bands playing that style of metal today. Additionally, those picking up the limited digipak version will find a cover of Manowar’s greatest epic, “Battle Hymn.” As much as I hate digipaks, the Manowar cover makes this evil packaging layout worthy of purchase.

(originally written by me for www.metal-rules.com, January, 2004)