CD review VISIGOTH "The revenant king"

(7/10) Quite interesting stuff is coming from Salt Lake City, Utah these days. Visigoth (named after an ancient German tribe) is coming from this area with a cool debut album in their bag. The band plays classical heavy metal with some power metal influences. The lyrics are more stereotype for this kind of music by singing about battles and myths; something that is indicated already by their name.

The band was founded in 2010 and consists out of Jamison Palmer (g), Leeland Campana (g), Jake Rogers (v), Matt Bortherton on bass and Mikey T. on drums. The first three are founding members while the rhythm section joined in at a later.

The five-piece released already a demo (two of the four tracks are also on the debut) and an EP between 2010 and 2012. Now it's time for Visigoths' debut "The revenant king" that will be published as we speak. The longplayer comes via Metal Blade and like with Below in 2014 it seems that the label has the right touch to find those newcomers that show potential.

As said earlier, the music is traditional heavy metal that can be placed somewhere between Iron Maiden (listening to the twin guitars and some guitar lines), Blind Guardian and even some Candlemass that comes up to the surface from time to time.

Next to the great riffing from Palmer and Campana I would like to mention the vocals. Jake Rogers is doing a great job and he has a wide range that fits perfect into the concept of the band. He is a real metal singer that can easily combine heaviness with melody in his way of singing.

The songs, nine in total, are expect the Manilla Road cover "Necropolis" all longer then 5 minutes; most of them have even an epically length of 7-9 minutes. This means that you get a lot of metal on this album. Small point of critic is that the flow in some tunes could be better. In a few tracks I had the feeling the the different elements that give the songs the diversity aren't connected that well. But this isn't disturbing and since it is the debut it's also something that shouldn't matter too much.

All in all I can say that Visigoth's debut is a record that should be checked by all fans of traditional metal and NWoBHM. You will get pure and raw metal.

(7/10)

Tracklist:

1. The revenant king
2. Dungeon master
3. Mammoth rider
4. Blood sacrifice
5. Iron brotherhood
6. Necropolis
7. Vengeance
8. Creature of desire
9. From the arcane mists of prophecy

Label: Metal Balde

Genre: Heavy Metal