Eyewitness

Eyewitness is sort of the forgotten Royal Hunt album. In some listings of the band's discography, it doesn't even appear, and the band rarely seems to play anything from it live. It's not a situation of the band ignoring an early album--this is Royal Hunt's seventh full-length--or one where they had a poorly-received stylistic deviation--they are the same neoclassical power metal band here as they are on all their other releases. So what gives? What sort of secrets does this overlooked album hold?

Not many particularly interesting ones, it turns out. Listen through this and you'll hear quite clearly why Eyewitness gets ignored. It's not that it's a bad album, per se. It just doesn't offer many reasons to come back for more, sounding more like a collection of The Mission B-sides than a real Royal Hunt studio album. Which is strange, because Eyewitness, like its predecessor, is a gapless concept album, so it's not like it lacks ambition. Rather, it sounds simultaneously ambitious and throwaway, a strange combination.

To begin, the production doesn't quite gel to the extent of most past Royal Hunt releases. Jacob Kjaer's rhythm guitar tone, in particular, has a mechanical feel to it that clashes with the rest of the band's tonality. This worked out okay on The Mission, where the guitars locked in with the electronic drum grooves, but the band is back to real drums here, courtesy of session man Allan Tschicaja. It's nice to hear real drums in the band's sound again (as good as The Mission was), but Tschicaja's kit is buried in the mix; even his snare has difficulty cutting through Kjaer's thick guitars, Andre Andersen's various keyboards, and the frequent walls of backing vocals. Speaking of the backing vocals, they detract from the songs more often than not. Kenny Lubcke's voice just isn't suited for this role, and it prevents the patented Royal Hunt call-and-response chorus to work in songs like "Can't Let Go" and especially "Burning The Sun."

Speaking of choruses, they are the other big issue with Eyewitness. On several songs, the band will be clicking throughout the verses and prechoruses, only to open up into a bland, boring chorus, with Kjaer playing mechanical, boring power chords, John West singing similarly bland melodies, and Lubcke's reedy voice further hurting matters. Even the chorus lyrics tend to be repetitive, with the titles of "Hunted," "Can't Let Go," "Edge of the World," etc. repeated several times. Given how chorus-centric Royal Hunt's signature sound tends to be, the fact that these feel so underbaked is the main driver of the feeling that the album as a whole is throwaway.

But there is ambition to be found on Eyewitness that is rare among Royal Hunt albums. Sound effects connect the tracks, making this a gapless album (though frankly, they often are more distracting than immersive). The album also has some unusual diversions. Take, for example, "The Prayer," which contains just West, backing vocals, and a church organ. West can pull this sort of thing off, but the track isn't dynamic and the backing vocals are subpar at supporting his lead. "Wicked Lounge," a detour into the lounge music realm, is more successful, as West again adapts to a different style, showcasing a bluesy delivery on top of some cool saxophone bits and backing vocals that actually assist. Bonus track "Day Is Dawning" is another minimalist ballad, with just vocal, piano, and synth, and it's one of the best moments on the album, with West getting some excellent melodies with a crystalline delivery. The band also throws in an instrumental (the decent "5th Element"), and the title track has some interesting Spanish guitar flourishes. Still, though, these detours have as many misses as hits.

It's not as if there aren't good performances on Eyewitness, though. There's a good argument to be made that West actually is better here than on The Mission (he is certainly better than he was on Fear, at the very least). In his third album with the band, he finally tapped into the grittier style of singing that he did so well in his mid-'90s projects, and it comes out on the great verses of "Can't Let Go," "Edge of the World," and "Game of Fear," and he also shows some bluesy diversity elsewhere in addition to the typical smooth vocals he put on the previous two discs. He also gets a couple of shots at piercing high notes, with mixed results. Kjaer's soloing on this album is probably the best he ever had with Royal Hunt, as "Hunted," "5th Element," "Burning The Sun," and "Help Us God" all have some interesting ones, and he gets a cool wah riff in the latter. Andre Andersen sounds good as usual. The weak point (Lubcke aside) is Tschicaja, who gives decent propulsive grooves but doesn't do much to add to the songs; the energy and flair that Kenneth Olsen and Allen Sørensen brought to the band on past releases is absent here.

But as good as the performances are, most every song manages to show a serious flaw somewhere, whether it's the underbaked choruses, poor backing vocals, detours that don't quite work, or things like "Hunted" spending half of its five-minute runtime on a ridiculously long intro that is too much to wade through to get to the good second half. The exceptions to this are the title track, with its soft grace exploding into a final two minutes of metallic fury, and the beautiful "Day Is Dawning," but even these are relatively meek as high points go.

It's all pleasant melodic music, but there isn't much of a wow factor. No songs or even individual performances really stand out as big moments. In fact, most of the best moments of Eyewitness come in the verses of songs, which is a decidedly strange place for a anthemic band like Royal Hunt to put their best ideas and performances. "Help Us God," "Game of Fear," and "Can't Let Go" could've all been classic RH songs with better production and choruses, but the band consistently falls short of its vision on these tracks and others. One wonders if the downturn in quality, which the band would thankfully reverse on followup Paper Blood, contributed to the subsequent departures of Kjaer and bassist Steen Mogensen, who had been with the band since the early '90s.