Heavy Metal Wakes the Beast

Hailing from the far lands of Estonia, HERALD's is quite a pleasant surprise recently added to my collection.

My first experience with this band was their "Heavy Metal Wakes the Beast" track that can be downloaded on the internet. That song was great, one of those catchy as hell heavy metal anthems that you could sing and bang along even on the first play, heavily inspired by the gods such as SAXON and HOLOCAUST. Not very original, but hey it's about blood, guts, beer and Heavy fuckin' Metal, the way we live and worship! and I'm sure it must be a local headbangers' highlight!

But in fact the band has much more to offer:

My most favorite cut is probably "The Swarm, the Hive, the Empire". A dark, creepy, but somehow epic opus. Mart Kalvet's vocals totally reign on this one! Extremely theatrical and emotional, a bit reminded me of Big Boss on the last few ROOT albums, but of course less classical-influenced. I guess the members' doom metal background helped a lot while writing this song, it really grows(and crawls >:) on me and I definitely hope to hear more of this style in the coming future.

Other standouts are the opening "My Judgement Cometh", simple yet balls-to-the-wall speed/power metal; "Battalion Berserk" is that kinda glorious battle hymns about strength and honour which makes you want to pick up a sword and go out slay some wimps; also "Hell Brigade" has this carefully developed acoustic combination that most of today's bands only dare to add when they want to make a chart-hitting ballad, but HERALD did it the right and effective way...

The fact is that I would go as far as saying every song on this album is absolutely killer highclass heavy metal and should be heard by everyone who digs bands like TWISTED TOWER DIRE, OCTOBER 31, THE LORD WEIRD SLOUGH FEG, HOLY DRAGONS and so on. One minor complaint from me would be the pretty odd and hollow drums production on the last 4 tracks(recorded in 2005), what's up with the snare?

With a beast on the cover pouring beer into poser's mouth and a devil in the background doing the "Holy Diver" horns, you know you are in for a real metal treat! This CD comes highly recommended!!

"Come heavy metal weather, come raining studs and nails!" \m/