The Waymaker

Christian Rivel and I go way back. I was a big Narnia fan in my teenage power metal days, and I adored ‘Glory Thy Name’, DivineFire’s debut album from 2004, which was also his first collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Jani Stefanovic, something that turned out to be pretty profitable for the two of them. That album was also rather unique stylistically, combining apocalyptic keyboard bombast and Gothenburg melo-death guitar work with Christian’s velvety, very Swedish power metal tenor. ‘Hero’ was a good follow up, but I lost interest in them after that. Wisdom Call wasn’t all that great, either. Rivel has always been a soft-sounding vocalist, but his voice grew stronger as the years went on, producing his best work ever in 2010 on Golden Resurrection’s first strike ‘Glory To My King’, still one of the most orgasmic displays of neoclassical power metal propulsion from the new Millennium. He was working with Tommy Johansson of Majestica/Sabaton fame then, though. You’d expect it to be good.

Even though the last two Golden Resurrection albums weren’t so hot, Rivel never gave up his quest to bring Christian power metal to the masses, and despite missing his comeback album with Narnia in 2019, I was excited about the prospect of him working with Jani Stefanovic again in The Waymaker, and I’m proud to admit this is a cracking album full of heavy, pounding power metal songs with Rivel sounding tougher than he has in years. This is sort of like a modern continuation of the distinctive DivineFire sound with the more palpable power metal approach of Golden Resurrection, with the added bonus of female singer Katja Stefanovic, Jani’s new wife. She mainly does backing vocals with a few solo sections and a full tune in sappy ballad ‘The Rain Of Your Love’, but she’s a nice addition to the team nonetheless. The heavy slam of Jani’s guitars aren’t quite as abrasive as they were in DivineFire, but they still pack a hell of a punch, so this is no wimpy Christian rock shit; it’s a wake up call, a proud set of metal hymns to Christ. Now, obviously, if that’s not your thing, you probably won’t dig the lyrics, but they don’t really get in the way of pounding tunes like ‘The Name Above All Names’ and the killer ‘Marching On’. Hell, the opening title/band track is one of the best cuts here, just a pure fire-breathing banger of power metal kickassery.

It’s too skimpy at only thirty-five minutes, and with that boring ballad and a Stryper cover marring the track list a little (to be fair, it is ‘Soldiers Under Command’, so you know, it’s pretty cool anyway), there’s more that could’ve been done here. But this is a great start for The Waymaker, and a heavy, punishing take on Christian power metal that when you’re in the mood for a fist-pumping wallop will take care of business in no time.