Hordes of the Brave

Iron Mask is a project led by Dushan Petrossi, the same force behind Magic Kingdom. If Petrossi should be known for anything, it's that he is following the footsteps of the legendary Yngwie Malmsteen, as he has the same neoclassical flair, and chops, as his idol. “Hordes of the Brave” is the second album by Iron Mask and was released in 2005. If you've ever listened to anything written by Petrossi before, then you will not find any surprises here: what you will find is high quality power metal with a neoclassical flair.

The root of Iron Mask's delivery is fast paced and thundering power metal. The tempo ranges from blistering fast to brooding and contemplative, but it always manages to carry a rather heavy air. Most of the music here showcases aggressive and powerful drumming and chugging power chords with lightning fast leads, like “Iced Wind of the North” and “Holy War”, but there are slower tracks, such as “My Eternal Flame”. The slower tracks really seem to take away from the power and momentum built up by the rest of the tracks, but are more than competently performed. “Alexander the Great – Hordes of the Brave, Part I”, sees all of the power and technicality of the rest of the album, only slowed down to a marching anthem, which drives along with Egyptian scale work diving in and out.

Which leads me to the leads (redundant a bit?). Dushan Petrossi carries the Malmsteen flag quite well: so well in fact that I believe his guitar work is more interesting than anything put out by old Yngwie in quite a few years. The leads have a very neoclassical and baroque feel to them, with fast paced phrasing and scale work all over the fretboard. One of the highlights is the Eddie Van Halen inspired lead run during the entirety of “Troops of Avalon”. The guitars aren't the only leads though, as keyboard duties are handled by the legendary Richard Andersson. Now the keyboards aren't extremely prominent here, but there are a few enjoyable Stratovarius styled keyboard solos mixed in.

Vocalist, Goetz Mohr, more than adequately handles the vocal duties. His somewhat gruff, Jeff Scott Soto styled delivery accents the heavy, aggressive tracks nicely, but falls a little flat during the slower sections. It's not that his vocals are bad during these sections, it's just that his vocals are much more suited to the faster sections. Mohr has a tendency to bring forth a Jorn Lande styled shout at the end of a lot of lines, and like Jorn, is able to stay in key while doing so. Oliver Hartman handles lead vocals on three tracks and also does background vocals throughout. It's actually rather difficult to tell the difference between the two singers, as their delivery is extremely similar. The biggest difference I can hear is that Hartman is a little smoother, and as a result, slightly more enjoyable during the slower sections.

With “Hordes of the Brave”, Dushan Petrossi shows that he has some great songwriting skills and can make an enjoyable power metal album. While Yngwie Malmsteen may be a huge influence here, Iron Mask is able to take the same idea and make enjoyable and catchy songs, without making the album an hour long shred fest. The thundering rhythm section helps make this an extremely heavy yet still extremely accessible listen. The lead guitar work is phenomenal and the vocals are enjoyable. A lot of bands are doing and have done this style to death, but Iron Mask plays it competently enough to stand at the head of the pack. While not the most original album in the world, but this should find a lot of playtime for fans of neoclassical power metal.

Written for The Metal Observer
http://www.metal-observer.com/

I’ve been at a loss to determine why Petrossi has both this project as well as “Magic Kingdom”, when essentially you can merge the two together and not see any major divergence in the evolution of his songwriting. Aside from some slightly different tendencies in subject matter and emphasis on solos, the only real difference between the two is that “Magic Kingdom” has managed to keep its original vocalist for all of its studio work. But regardless of the reasoning, it’s a safe bet that if you like what you heard on the Magic Kingdom albums, you’ll like what “Iron Mask” brings to the table.

“Hordes of the Brave” is cut from a similar vain as “Metallic Tragedy” stylistically, minus the longer and more technical solos and the different main singer. The songs are quite heavy and aggressive, too much so to really fall into the derogatory flower metal label, although we don’t get the black and death metal vocals packed into a unique and elongated opera metal epic. Former “At Vance” frontman Oliver Hartmann makes another couple of lead vocals appearances on here, leading me to wonder why he doesn’t take over this project as he isn’t doing anything speed metal on a regular basis and would be perfect for this kind of outfit.

One particular aspect of this album that really impressed the hell out of me is the sheer precision and thunderous nature of the drumming put forth by Anton Arkhipov, who also did some work with Magic Kingdom. He may actually be faster and more vicious behind the kit than Alex Holzwarth and comes close to being equal to Dan Zimmerman. It isn’t surprising that many of the better power metal drummers out there have histories with black and death metal outfits, as the ridiculously technical kind of drumming that those extreme sub-genres call for must make a simple double bass power metal beat seem like a cakewalk.

The vocal performance of Goetz Mohre (nicknamed “Vahalla Jr.”) on here is also noteworthy as it contrasts strongly with that of Phil Letawe’s somewhat weak vocal delivery on the last album. Mohre has a pretty strong amount of grit and sleaze to his voice which adds to the overall punch of the arrangement, while still maintaining the tenor range that is obligatory for the genre. At times it is difficult between when Mohre is doing lead vocals and when Hartmann is providing them because they both essentially take a good bit after Jeff Scott Soto, but this works to the advantage of this outfit as when Mohre is at the helm his singing doesn’t clash with Hartmann’s backup choir parts.

From start to finish, “Hordes of the Brave” is a relentless assault of speed and virtuosity, screaming epic all the while. Be it neo-baroque crushers like “Holy War”, quasi-Viking metal epics like “Iced Wind of the North” (Hartmann’s best performance on here) or the crazy as all hell mix of speed riffs and folk melodies that is “Troops of Avalon”; everything just kicks ass from start to finish and doesn’t let up. It doesn’t waste time with brief instrumentals or technical displays without words; it just keeps on throwing triumphant anthems one after the other until you literally can’t take it anymore.

Although not quite the show of versatility that was “Metallic Tragedy”, “Hordes of the Brave” is pretty much equally as enjoyable and arguably outclasses the former in terms of consistency from song to song. Although not the most original stylistically, Petrossi’s brand of power metal/shred definitely gets the job done in the quality department, which is more important anyway for this genre which puts melody and virtuoso skill before stylistic gimmicks and shock value.