Knights of the Realm

Sometimes it takes a while for an artist to fully realize his calling, and in the particular case of Eclipse cofounder and guitar shred extraordinaire Magnus Henriksson, it took a little over 20. To be fair, the wild virtuosic displays that Magnus has brought to the more AOR-tinged craft of his principle band amounts to a unique contrast that makes them a cut above the rest, but ultimately a guitarist of his caliber ought to be lighting his fret board on fire to some heavier material as well. In essence, that is how the newly minted heavy metal trio Knights Of The Realm and their eponymous debut LP comes off, as a long time coming venture into old school metallic fury that a guitarist after the tradition of Randy Rhoads, Herman Frank and Glenn Tipton would feel like home occupying. With the combined talents of longtime Tiamat drummer Lars Sköld and primal screamer Marcus von Boisman, the resulting sound accomplished is, to put it mildly, quite formidable.

Hearkening back to the days when merciless sonic assaults came in smaller packages, this sub-40 minute opus comes across as a concise series of orthodox metallic thunder, yet has a strong epic flavor to it as well. Taking a page out of the grandiose structural tendency that classic early metal albums such as Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance and Iron Maiden's Killers, the album kicks off with a triumphant instrumental prelude "An August Play", which begins on a charming acoustic guitar theme and then blasts into a metallic celebration with a slight neoclassical edge, not all the dissimilar to occasional interludes classical territory by Accept. A curveball is thrown into the equation when this heroic overture lands on a slow-creeping, almost doom metal-like groove with a melancholy melodic scheme in "Into The Void", which almost sounds akin to how an early 80s heavy metal band might have accidentally wandered into Candlemass territory.

Nevertheless, barring this rather unorthodox introduction, Knights Of The Realm proves to be a mostly conventional homage to the classic handiwork of Accept, Judas Priest, Manowar and a few other noteworthy prime movers in the 80s heavy metal and early USPM scene. It's a bit more on the modern side from a production standpoint when compared to the legion of NWOTHM bands floating around out there, and crushing speed anthems like "Heavy Metal", "Blood On Steel" and "Steel My Heart" ultimately sound closer to the faster material heard out of recent offerings courtesy of Primal Fear and Hammerfall. Likewise, the groovy throwbacks to early 80s Accept such as the crunch-steeped "Chains Of Metal" (an all but full on homage to "Balls To The Wall") and "When Metal Meets The Beast" have a more modern flavor similar to the past couple solo offerings out of Herman Frank.

Say what one may about the pop/rock sensibilities that Eclipse has flirted with as a main attraction of the Frontiers Records carnival, but Magnus Henriksson is the real deal, and any old school metal purists who doubt this are strongly encouraged to give this album a go. There isn't a whole lot of new ground being broken on these songs, but if the massive middle finger rising out of the ground on the cover doesn't drive the message home, that isn't really the point of this project. With all of the makings of a guitar god already having been displayed 2 decades prior to this album coming to light, it can be rightly assumed that the level of bottled up intensity that has been dispersed into these songs is through the roof. A solid entry for old school heavy metal trustees and German speed metal junkies alike, it might end up proving to be just a little too much metal to handle.