PYRAMAZE — Legend of the Bone Carver (review)

PYRAMAZE — Legend of the Bone Carver album cover

Album · 2006 · Power Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-04-13
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Legend of the Bone Carver is the second full-length album by Danish power metal band Pyramaze, and the last with original vocalist Lance King. It is a concept album, coming complete with narration, but not to the point that the narrative is a dominant feature of the album, something I feel often spoils otherwise really good albums. The music also has something of a progressive flair to it, but not to the point that I'd consider this a prog dominant album. No, Legend of the Bone Carver is for the most part a Euro flavoured power metal album, and all in all a pretty good one at that.

As the album begins we get some symphonic keyboards which are followed by the first lot of spoken word vocals, to be honest these spoken words make the music sound like the beginning of a children’s fantasy film, but don't let that put you off, since for the most part Legend of the Bone Carver is an album that is just as easily taken as songs rather than a concept piece, although on that note the album has a better concept feel to it than many other concepts albums. This intro track, titled Era of Chaos, sets up the album’s concept story in just over a minute so there isn’t long to wait before the actual songs start. Normally I bash intro type tracks but since this one has meaning it’s acceptable. Era of Chaos neatly moves into The Birth and this is where the good metal begins.

Vocalist Lance King however is a bit of an acquired taste, with a voice that even to me, a fan, has it’s annoying moments, and unfortunately one of them is his first singing vocal part. Thankfully though as The Birth gets going his vocals improve, and backed up by heavy power metal guitar riffs, with the keyboards handling most of the melody and some excellent drumming makes for some great metal music.

Third track, What Lies Beyond and the fifth, Souls in Pain are even better. The former has an epic chorus and even features a guest appearance from Lance King’s son, which adds something special to the story side of Legend of the Bone Carver in the fact that the Bone Carver, the story’s character, grows up throughout the early songs in the album so having the father and son vocal team makes for what I can only describe as giving the music a truer feeling in regard to the story. As much as I like him, Lance King would not have sounded good trying to sound like the confused child that the Bone Carver was in that point in the story. However this brings me around to my first problem with this album. I think it would have been better if Tomy King had been used just a little bit more than he was. There are parts in the fourth track, Ancient Words Within that I think he would have suited well. Souls in Pain is one of the albums best songs and like What Lies Beyond has an epic chorus and some excellent guitar playing. Bring Back Life also follows this sort of formula but is twice as good. In my opinion it’s the best song on the album.

It’s not all fast paced power metal however. She Who Summoned Me features a slower piano main musical line and is much more a ballad, even when the electric guitars join in. It is also a duet between Lance King and guest female singer Christina Oberg. The guitar solo here is slow, melodic and fits in perfectly between the vocal parts. This song is beautiful and another great highlight of the album.

The final two tracks again feature the spoken word vocals first heard in Era of Chaos. Blood Red Skies much more than Tears of Hate because it is dominated by the spoken word. It’s like the song is there to set up Tears of Hate as an epilogue for the album. But this is where my second and final complaint about Legend of the Bone Carver comes in. It’s not really a musical fault which is why the final score doesn’t really suffer for it. It’s about the story of Legend of the Bone Carver. It all seems rather rushed and incomplete. From what I gather the Bone Carver discovers his purpose about two third’s of the way into the seventh song, The Bone Carver. That leaves just Bring Back Life to tell the section which, if it was a film or book, would be the main section, the whole point of the story. In short the album seems written with seven tracks to set up the story, one to put across the main point, two to conclude it in an epilogue fashion. It just seems strange to me. As I said, it’s not a musical fault and it’s music that I’m reviewing this for, not Pyramaze’s ability as storytellers, which, if this album is an example to go by, needs a bit of evolution. As a lyrical writer however, chief writer Michael Kammeyer has done no wrong. This is some excellent metal, so forget about the holes in the story and enjoy. I highly recommend this.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)