The Raven Ride

The employment of cliche does not necessarily imply a lackluster outcome, though often times it can limit the bounds of expression if one's understanding of said common practice is correspondingly limited. The release of Empire's third studio LP, and second one with former Black Sabbath frontman Tony Martin at the helm for all concerned parties, is a fairly blatant example of how this phenomenon can inform an entire album's worth of music. Despite the music of Sabbath that rounded out Tony Martin's tenure in both the 80s and 90s being quite diverse in both tempo and atmosphere, there is a prevalent view that his voice tends to function best in the slow tempo and darker atmosphere that typified songs like "Ancient Warrior", "The Headless Cross", "Jerusalem" and a number of similar songs heard on Cross Purposes and Forbidden respectively, as can be observed in a more recent case on Martin's vocal contribution to the 2015 sophomore LP of Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall. But The Raven Ride is an album that takes this misconception to its logical conclusion on numerous occasions, underscoring guitarist and songwriter Rolf Munkes' tendency to adapt his songwriting to whoever is at the microphone.

For what this album may lack in speed and technical intrigue, it makes up for with a brilliant atmospheric aesthetic and a fair degree of tonal diversity to offset this album's near monolithic pacing. Munkes' riff work is notably heavier and has a clear Tony Iommi tilt to it, though there are some occasions where he veers into territory more readily associated with Uli Jon Roth and Ritchie Blackmore on more mystical sounding and quasi-progressive rocking anthem "Carbon Based Lifeform" and goes off into a more catchy yet still respectably heavy blues rocking streak on "I Can't Trust Myself" (a song that might as much resemble a rocker off Seventh Star as it would an 80s Deep Purple anthem). His guitar soloing has likewise taken on a far less virtuoso tone, opting for a collection of expressive and blues infused lead breaks that merge the brevity and choppy affect of Iommi with the smoother and warmer feel of Blackmore. At times one might be attempted to compare this to an Axel Rudi Pell album on its stylistic inclinations, but atmospherically it's a bit less strictly bound to mid-80s production practices and comes off as a tad larger and heavier sounding than a Shadow Zone or Mystica, though both albums have a similarly uniform pacing.

Apart from a one-off romp into fast rocking territory with a gritty and mean demeanor in "Maximum" that sounds partially like a fast number off The Eternal Idol but with a raucous gang chorus thrown in, this album almost crosses over into becoming an outright epic doom metal affair. The deep and forbidding atmosphere, trudging beat and riffs, and often socially or religiously charged lyrics of such slow to just barely mid-paced offerings as the opening title song "The Raven Ride", "Breathe", "Satanic Curses" and the Mid-Eastern tinged nod to Rainbow with a heavier bottom end "Al Sirat" could well have graced any of Sabbath's late 80s albums and upped their doom credentials to the point of rivaling Candlemass. Similarly, the sense of utter fatalism and hopelessness expressed in this album's ballad "What Would I Do" all but perfectly emulates how Sabbath approached ballad work in the mid-90s, not to mention showcasing Tony Martin's uncanny ability to be both poignant while pushing the upper boundaries of the tenor vocal register. The ultimate coup of this thing, however, is the massive closing doom epic and homage to the title song of The Eternal Idol in "The Devil Speaks, The Sinner Cries", which takes the religious aesthetic common to doom metal and brings it another level entirely.

There isn't really any glaring flaw in this album apart from a fairly obvious lack of originality, but that also proves to be one of this album's greatest charms. Though it could have stood to have included a few faster numbers to cover the contingent of Martin's time in Sabbath represented in "The Law Maker", "Devil And Daughter" and "Immaculate Deception", this is about as close to a full on continuation of the brilliant and highly underrated collaboration that he had with the iconic forefathers of heavy metal. It's a far cry from the fancy, highflying fun of Hypnotica and it does kind of suffer a bit from a lack of chops displayed in the lead guitars, but just about anyone who felt cheated by the interference of Ozzy Osbourne's lesser half that ultimately paved the way to one of the most unproductive reunions in the history of heavy metal and the veritable end of Sabbath as a force in the studio will find consolation here. Though he may be getting up there in age, this album also makes a fairly good case for Tony Martin being in the running for any future Candlemass albums should things not work out with John Langquist.