North West Indiana’s DRAGONLORE are delivering their debut album on Iron Shield Records.
They successfully combine Heavy, Power and Speed Metal -with some Thrashy touches as well-, bringing into our minds bands like METAL CHURCH, old OVERKILL (“Feel The Fire”, “Taking Over”) and HELSTAR.
In many of their tracks they got this special dark touch that would drive you straight to your worst KING DIAMOND nightmare -listen to the track “Hand Of Gypsy” for example-.
They for sure deliver full force riffing and there is some great work done on the lead parts of the songs. I enjoyed the overall guitar stuff in here, Bernard Stinski and James Brucks works good as a ugitar duo. And yes the hammering rhythm section, it gives even more power to the songs, Marty Buchaus on bass and James Marlow on drums simply nailed it.
The vocals of Joe Lawson is the key point in this release. A combinations of James Rivera, King Diamond and John Cyriis is what I am hearing in his voice. He got the talent, he got the range, he got the balls.
If you ask me to pick some tunes from here I would for sure select “Lucifer’s Descent”, “Destroyer Of The Undead” -which will be the band’s first video-, “Hand Of Gypsy” and “Witchunt”.
Things to be improved? Sure. This is their first album. For example I believe that they should balance their song writing a little bit focusing on this early HELSTAR / AGENT STEEL Speed / Power stuff, but on the same time to examine a little further those mid tempo parts as they work extremely well -Hand Of The Gypsy-. Lawson should also be more careful on the placement of some vocal phrases. I am pointing all those things now, cause I am expecting a lot of things from then in the future.
The album surely deserves to spend your cash on it. Grab some cold beers as well. And not let the cover and the name fool you: This is US Power / Speed Metal and not another BLIND GUARDIAN clone. Lol.
