Set in Stone

I’m kicking myself for not discovering this band earlier. Lord is an Australian power metal act that spawned from the ashes of Dungeon, both of which feature what is essentially exactly my kind of music… it’s riffy, upbeat, driving power metal that sort of just does everything you need. Set in Stone was the third album for this new act and if you like this style it’s a no-brainer.

This isn’t proggy or overly heavy or anything like that – it’s pure power metal to the bone, featuring a good set of crunchy, propulsive riffs, a big bright production sound, manic drumming and of course Lord Tim’s vocals. He’s sort of just solid all around – he can evoke Geoff Tate at times, and other times he digs into a more modern sound for these big layered power metal choruses. He just sells the songs with a soulful, straightforward powerful singing style. No gimmicks.

Likewise the songwriting is a pot-luck of various power metal tropes. It’s all done with a love for the genre, no irony, no dumb-ass humor. There’s speedy tunes like the blistering opener “Redemption,” hard rocking, chorus-centric ones like “100 Reasons” and even some harsher stuff with “Someone Else’s Dream.” Some of the best moments come when Tim trades off harsh vocals with clean ones, as it just has such an urgent flavor to it – they do this on pretty much all their albums, and it just ends up hitting you hard. It’s hard to pick a standout track as most of it is very solid, though the careening title track and the monster epic “The End of Days” might be the choice picks. This might be the band's most unabashedly Europower-sounding album, with the most focus on speed and those gigantic chorus melodies.

If there’s a flaw it’s that the album ends on a bit of a whimper – the ballad “New Horizons” is pretty stock and goes on too long. The Kylie Minogue cover is alright but not really the best song on the album. None of it is awful, but the album does start to go on a bit at like 65 minutes, and even longer with the two bonus tracks, neither of which are terribly gripping. So it does wear out its welcome a bit, but the good stuff is really fucking good.

Ultimately the band’s strength is just that they know how to play up their strengths and present the music as it should be. The choruses sound massive and just knock you flat on your ass. The guitars have the right kind of clarity but also crunch to them, and the riffs just gallop along like horses on the plains, never letting up the intensity. Everything is satisfying because they know exactly what parts of the sound to accentuate and what the style needs. It’s serious music by a serious band. Go get this band’s whole discography if you have any interest in melodic metal. Hell - this isn't even their best one.