Every fortnight, we check in with all things heavy on RTRFM’s Critical Mass show.
This writer can never understand the knock that some people have on the more melodic/power metal genre, that its cheesy and cliche. Every genre of music is cheesy and full of clichés, from the most brutal death metal to gangster rap.
Done well, power metal can be invigorating and uplifting to listen to. Bands like Hammerfall and Dragonforce got big for a reason: they had the chops (especially the maniacs in Dragonforce), and while they had a sense of humour about them, they were all seriously talented and made some great music that didn’t take the audience for granted. (Having a track in an extremely popular game like Guitar Hero also didn’t hurt.)
Yet it must be said that for power metal to be not just good but great, all members of the band must be firing on all cylinders. If one piece doesn’t deliver, the whole band suffers.
Perth’s Silent Knight have created an excellent batch of songs on their second album, Conquer & Command, that has all members firing at full capacity. New vocalist Jesse Onur Oz slots in perfectly and delivers quite the performance, the band backing him up with harmonies from time to time. Tours in Indonesia and Australia-wide with Helloween have really forced the band to step up their game and it shows with some fantastic twin guitar shredding on tracks such as “The Strike Of The Sword” and “The Ravens Return”.
All the tracks here are pretty great and they thankfully don’t try to pull any kind of power balladry. The guys are firmly on the metal side of things here. The production is pretty good and every instrument is loud and clear, however there are a few times when the guitars occasionally sound a touch sterile. It seems like a few tracks might have been recorded in a different session, but it doesn’t take too much away from the album in the end.
The album ends with the one-two punch of ‘Power Metal Supreme’ (a track that is a love letter to the genre and a ripping cover of ‘The Final Countdown’. Great stuff from a genre that gets zero coverage in Australia.
Command & Conquer is available now.
Critical Mass airs every Wednesday from 9PM (GMT+8) on RTR FM 92.1 in Perth, Australia.
