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Lightbringer marks the second full-length record from the Swedish Heavy Metal act RAM, and continues to rock hard with a traditional Heavy Metal sound the gods would smile upon. This release, however, also seems to have a slight Power Metal feel to it wih some of the songs, as well as still in the vocals. But, even with this influence slightly present, that doesn't change the fact that this album is a fine piece of well crafted music in the vein of the classic style of Heavy Metal that helped to forge the style with what it is today. While this is more of a traditional release, there are still some elements outside of this boundary that could be picked up on and examined that lead one to assume that there was some Power Metal influence thrown in. Take the vocals on the first actual track, which happens to be the title track, "Lightbringer". Fans of Blind Guardian will notice some similarities in the performance as far as how the vocalist sings and the way certain notes sound in comparison to that band's vocalist, even though the signature voice is not copied as well. This is also proof of the vocalist's wide vocal range, which is exhibited nicely ont his release, especially during the obvious King Diamond or Mercyful Fate inspired track "Awakening the Chimaera" thanks to the guitars being reminiscent, and the higher falsetto vocals utilized. However, this isn't to say the song is a blatent rip off of these bands, as each song has their own unique feel, mostly thanks to the raw production quality, giving the album a good edge without coming off as evil or haunting, though sometimes there is a dark atmosphere to the music. The album really does run the gambit as far as the overall tone goes. There are plenty of songs that do have that slightly darker edge to them, like the aforementioned "Awakening the Chimaera", but then you have cuts like "Blood God" which are just straight forward old-school Heavy Metal bliss. The only downfall to this album would be the somewhat overpowering bass kicks. There's no denying Lightbringer is a solid album from start to finish, but the bass drums sound muffled, but that's actually not the real problem. The muffled bass kicks are actually of a higher volume in some of the lighter tracks like "Blood God", as well as in many lighter moments, and if there's an excessive amount of bass kicks it can sometimes overpower the vocals. Of course, at the same time there seems to be a varying volume level on the guitars as well, as sometimes they can be much louder then they really should be, such as on the track "Titan". There's really nothing bad to be said about this release. The only gripes that could be found are the vocal distortions on the first song, "Lightbringer", which don't really show up in any of the other tracks, causing it to sound like a rough mix of Halford and the aforementioned similarity with the vocalist of Blind Guardian at times. The echo-like effect really doesn't do it justice and makes the song a little harder to listen to. There's also the falsetto outro to "The Elixir", which just seems to be pushed and forced to go a bit over the time to close out the song, in the end sounding a bit too silly for the song. Aside all that, the introduction track "Crushing the Dwarf of Ignorance" really serves no purpose on this release whatsoever, and doesn't even work to set the tone of the album in any way as it actually conflicts greatly with it. The outro track "Prelude to Death" doesn't even really have to be there, as the outro to "The Elixir", cheesy as it may be, would have worked out better as a way to close the track then with an acoustic piece that ultimately is cut out at the very end with spoken whispers over it. In the end, RAM only has a few issues that really set the album back a bit, and those lie mostly with the intro and outro tracks that really didn't have to be there, so those could easily be skipped over in the long run. The point is that the music on this release is nice and heavy without any real fault outside of a production choice in "Lightbringer", and a little overdoing of some vocals. If you're craving some old school metal, then Lightbringer is a release you need to check out. |
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