Ravenlord

Album review

Germany's capacity for producing and then maintaining power metal bands in healthy business (usually with a little help from the rest of the continent, Japan, and Brazil) is quite remarkable, and Mystic Prophecy is a perfect case in point for this curious condition. Though still largely undiscovered in the U.S. and the rest of the civilized universe, this Bavarian quintet has been working steadily since the year 2000, knocking out numerous tours while releasing a prolific seven albums, including the one discussed here, 2012's Ravenlord. It really just goes to show the staying power of this wildly popular subgenre, which arguably represents the modern equivalent of "classic" heavy metal (as defined by the Judas Priest/Iron Maiden template, not Black Sabbath's formative doom sound), and while not a single review will let you forget just how predictable and familiar the music's building blocks can be, rabid fans in those aforementioned countries never fail to lap it all up and still ask for more. Ravenlord fits squarely into these easy definitions: some songs fly (behold speed metal chargers like "Die Now, "Damned Tonight," "Cross of Lies"), others march ("Eyes of the Devil," "Wings of Destiny," the title track), and a few even defy the odds and mildly surprise (the catchy "Hollow" essentially reconstructs the Police's "Message in a Bottle" through a heavy metal prism). All songs are relatively compact and consistently shave the epic (but not always unwelcome) fat that prevailed on some prior Mystic Prophecy LPs, but there's no loss of songwriting quality as a result, and you know they'll go back there again in the future, so why get too hung up on the matter? Finally, a note-for-note album-closing cover of Ozzy Osbourne's "Miracle Man" wraps things up on an energized, if again hardly shocking note, presumably sending Mystic Prophecy fans (whoever they may be) home (wherever that may be) content, as usual.
© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo