If you love your power metal filled with ridiculous amounts of cheesy heroic singing, catchy atmospheric passages and tales of Scottish fictional history, then Scotland’s Gloryhammer will take you on a magical quest to ride with the unicorns and serve under the rulers of Angus Mcfife and crew. Originally formed in 2010 by Alestorm’s vocalist Christopher Bowes, Gloryhammer play a science fictional, historical, fantasy driven style of both power metal and symphonic metal with elements of traditional heavy metal thrown into the mixture. Each of their albums are conceptual upon each release but as someone who’s been following them since 2015’s Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards and got to witnessed them live last year on their first ever US tour with Alestorm, they became one of the most entertaining, theatrical and enjoyable bands within the genre I’ve ever seen.
Now, I won’t spoil the storyline between Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex and other releases but it’s extremely recommended to listen to their debut to the newest release to understand Gloryhammer’s message and interpretation based on the music itself. Musically, Gloryhammer takes their music not extremely serious since majority of the tracks are based on parodies which is completely fine by me because that’s what I’m about to go over right away. With tracks including The Siege of Dunkeld (In Hoots We Trust), Legendary Enchanted Jetpack, Hootsforce and Power of the Laser Dragon Fire for example the listener will get a glimpse of what Gloryhammer’s style is fully capable of showing. Mature craftsmanship, amazing composition work, incredible passages of beautiful melodies and audible instrumenting work between every instruments are sharp, clearer and crystal clear where the production value is not entirely overbearing from the mixing.
Tempos do slow on certain song titles but then rest of the album can speed up while quite frankly the catchy choruses are cheesy or redundant, the rhythmical sections of the instrumentation bring a fresh, historical region of Scottish gateways to operate craftsmanship as a whole. Gloryhammer took everything musically found in the genre and deserves to be taken much more serious from old age tales of Scotland been resurrected perfectly. But if you’re looking for a record consisted of balanced keyboard solos, soaring choruses, triple drenched guitars and solid drum performances, complimented musical arrangements and unique territorial, epic, and magnificent sheer of epic power metal.
Whether the catchy choruses are cheesy or redundant, the rhythmical sections of the instrumentation bring a fresh, historical region of Scottish gateways to operate craftsmanship as a whole, Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex is a 50 minute journey album that will be taking you to ride fourth into battle that’ll unleash battle cries and portraying the most imaginable pieces of music and power metal in general. I simply cannot recommend this album anymore enough and this will surely go on my end of the year list for 2019!
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
