ROYAL HUNT
Paper Blood
Frontiers Records 2005
www.royalhunt.com

What’s the 4-1-1?
After spending a year working on this new album, Royal Hunt are back with their 8th full-length studio album full of intense and in your face melodic metal for the concept album that is Paper Blood!

Genre
Symphonic metal

The Good
The guitar work on this album is superb. Marcus Jidell really finds his own niche in which to shine given the heavy emphasis on the keyboards of Andre Andersen. Drummer Kenneth Olsen provides a foot stomping foundation. While I don’t think John West is at the “Metal God” stature of vocalists just yet, he’s pretty darn good! Unlike a past review where I said the band seemed more interested in proving they could play their instruments instead of constructing songs, I think Royal Hunt does a fine job of straddling that fine line on this CD.

I loved the instrumental pieces “Memory Lane” and “SK 983.” As for tracks with vocals, the title cut is fantastic. The song “Kiss of Faith” is the best song on the album. The vocals are superb, and the changes in the tempo during the song are outstanding. They could serve as a distraction, but instead they are handled in such a manner that each change flows into the next quite well. I also enjoyed the songs “Not My Kind,” which featured some nice vocal gymnastics from West, and “Seven Days” which had a great vibe to go along with West’s vocals and Andersen’s keys.

The Bad
The lead track “Break Your Chains” was certainly a high-octane way to kick off the album. However, the keyboards were so in your face they really left everything else shoved in the background. The vocals for the song were lower in the mix than I thought they should be.

The Verdict
While I’m not ready to move the band into my continuing inner dialogue of greatest bands of all time, I really did enjoy the majority of this album. I enjoy symphonic metal and concept albums, so combining the two is a definite good way to start on your way to getting a good review from me. I’ll be very interested in checking out more of the band’s back catalogue. In the mean time you should pick up this album, sit back and enjoy a rollicking good time.

Did You Know?
Keyboardist and bandleader Andre Andersen began playing piano at the age of 5 in Moscow, Russia. Andersen got interested in rock music when he heard Deep Purple’s In Rock album. Vocalist John West replaced the late Ray Gillen in Badlands before the band eventually split up.

Rating: out of 5

-- Jay Roberts