The Rising Kingdom

It’d been a good seven years since the release of The Phantom Holy Sword. There, Phantom Excaliver had married over the top power metal ala Galneyrus with the melodeathisms of Dark Tranquillity’s 2000s albums, and largely succeeded with fun, highly melodic material. They showed themselves to be a band with a lot of charisma through their spirited compositions and performances, taking their favorite Galneyrus, Saber Tiger and Dark Tranquillity moments and doing with them whatever they wanted. What stopped the album short of power metal supremacy were Kacchang’s harsh vocals, which fall over themselves by being too abrasive and amelodic for the music that they’re done over, and plain not very good in execution, despite the sheer enthusiasm of his performance.

The Rising Kingdom raises the stakes with an even more focused approach-- ahh who I am trying to kid here; this album doubles the fuck down on their over the top proclivities with even more insane solos and spine-bending riffs, combining their power/heavy metal base with motifs reminiscent to that of every awesome anime opening song ever. “Metal Never Betrays Us” immediately pummels the senses with ultra-melodic lead and riff shredding, leading into white-hot solos like it’s going out of style, building up to massive choruses with an impassioned performance from Matsu making it feel even larger than life. This follows into “Cheers” with insanely uptempo compositions – backed by a wind section generating this infectious fuck off rhythm that adds a rather glorious seasoning to proceedings. “Legend of the Sword” replaces the wind sections with triplets and fucking blast beats. Even when “The Dynamite” and “Twilight Valkyria” play around with beatdown-styled breakdowns, there’s still that sense of gumption driving them forward that drives the faster shreddier riffs forward, especially “Twilight Valkyria” whose main riff following that amps up to outright thrash metal with enough energy to power up a town.

It seems like Phantom Excaliver have further improved their sound – from the shredfest of the debut to the more varied melodic metal of the sophomore album, and then a more focused melodic fiery assault here. It largely operates at about 9999% even when slowing down a bit with the breakdowns, yet the arrangements drive the melodies forward and allow the choruses to stand tall. Hell, “Twilight Valkyria” was an almost scary prospect in how its mid-paced, upbeat power metal chorus clashes with the “Hatebreed done in the style of Lovebites” verses, but its refrain towards the end redeems it into a reprieve from the solos and thrashier bridge and gives it quite the cherry on top. On that note, “Yassassa” shows that they can do mid-to-fast paced, more traditionally-inclined material with a militaristic gang-chanted chorus and spirited heavy metal riffs and keep that shit catchy like a pop fly.

That being said, not every song is not made equal. If “Twilight Valkyria” and “Cheers” were refined over the past few years, forged from the fire that birthed all these singles that they’d released since 2021, then “The Dynamite” and “Kingdom” were merely their foundations. Fine songs in their own right, but weaker melodically from a relative standpoint as they lean more on rhythms stitched together with less care than what’s on the better songs. “The Dynamite” felt like it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be, and “Kingdom” has a sense of finality with melodies here and there that sound like they’re ready to usher in the end credits, but it otherwise lacks any particularly standout moment. A couple of songs that seem like they’re a little too compartmentalized where they’re not given as much time to develop and thus they don’t have quite as striking of a melody, letting their gonzo energy do all the work.

I guess “Rainbow” is supposed to be the one with the really memorable structuring as it has the appearance of a metal single from like 15 years ago with its vaguely melodic kinda hazy riffing for the verse and a more pronounced clean vocal presence from both vocalists. Matsu provides the usual Japanese power metal vocals, with Kacchang providing a bit more baritone in his sections, and the vocal melodies do at least have some synergy with what the instrumentation’s going for. The emotive inflections certainly give this semi-ballad more than the borderline non-descript riffs to, at any rate. But then it wraps back around to being a shreddy power metal joint with solos aplenty, and it makes the song feel like it has no real identity. Outside of vocals, it definitely comes across as the weakest song on the album, dragging it down a bit. That issue I mentioned above definitely hits this song the worst as “gonzo energy” isn’t quite what this song has outside of its solos. It’s a shame because The Phantom Holy Sword did show some promise towards something great happening in this direction, but the song’s development just seems a bit rushed after the second verse.

Though speaking of Kacchang, let’s address the elephant in the room – Kacchang’s screams. They were a detriment to the prior two albums, but it seems that in the past seven years, old mate’s picked up a few things! They’re more laser-focused on amping up the energy of the riffs, rather than trying to overpower them, as he takes on a more intense approach that simultaneously carries a complementary melody. There’s a more searing burn to his inflections that give the riffs that extra bit of bite, especially on a song like “Twilight Valkyria”, although the likes of “Metal Never Betrays Us” and “Legend of the Sword” benefit from them by adding that extra drive and energy to the songs that give them a real spice. His charismatic screams had basically gone from overbearing to killer in a span of seven years.

It’s clear that Phantom Excaliver do have it in them to make a wholly great album. They’ve certainly got the drive and passion to do so, as especially shown in the better half of this album, and even in spades during the lesser half. The Rising Kingdom is an album whose energy has tons of energy, and while it often gets a little lost in itself as a result, when it works out in their favor, this shit’s beyond infectious.