NARNIA — Long Live the King (review)

Album · 1999 · Power Metal

4/5 · 2022-07-01
lukretion

After receiving encouraging feedback for their debut LP Awakening, guitarist CJ Grimmark and vocalist Christian Liljegren went back to the studio to record Narnia’s sophomore album. This time, however, the duo enlisted a fully-fledged line-up to realize their artistic vision, instead of relying on Grimmark to play all instruments by himself. Joining Grimmark and Liljegren on this album are bassist Jakob Persson, drummer Andreas Johansson and keyboard player Martin Claesson. The new line-up makes a huge difference in shaping Narnia’s music, as it confers a more powerful and well-rounded sound to the band that was missing on the debut album.

Long Live the King is otherwise cut from the same cloth as Awakening, finding inspiration in the neoclassical metal music of Rainbow and Malmsteen’s Rising Force and mixing influences from hard rock, power metal, and baroque music. The album is dominated by majestic mid-tempo songs that exalt Grimmark’s skilled but melodic playing and Liljegren’s trained tenor voice, one of the cleanest and most controlled one can find in this branch of metal. The guitar takes inevitably centre-stage as in much of neoclassical metal music, with lots of excellent hard rock riffs, melodic leads and solos. I particularly appreciate Grimmark’s playing here, as he never loses sight of melody when he constructs his solos and leads, in contrast to other neoclassical guitar heroes (including Malmsteen himself) who often seem to privilege fast and technical playing over anything else. The keyboards also feature prominently on this album to provide texture to the song with a wide range of sounds from harpsichord to organ to sampled choirs. This is a nice difference compared to the debut album, which highlights the importance of having included Martin Claesson in the line-up. The same goes for the inclusion of Persson and Johansson: having a real, flesh-and-blood rhythmic session instead of programmed drums makes a huge difference in the overall album’s sound.

The other main area of improvement compared to the debut record lies in the quality of the melodies. Awakening was a bit hit-and-miss when it came to providing memorable hooks that could transform a good song into a classic. In contrast, Long Live the King contains 3 or 4 tracks (“Living Water”, “Shelter Through the Pain”, the title-track) that are proper masterpieces, and the fact that such songs have been regularly included in the band’s live performances decades after their initial release is testament to that. More generally, it is hard to find weak songs in this album. Each one provides interesting moments, be it a catchy vocal hook, an exciting solo, or just a good riff. In addition to the tracks mentioned earlier, I am particularly fond of “Dangerous Game”, the only fast piece on the album that sounds like a cross between Malmsteen and Royal Hunt, and the closing track “Star Over Bethlehem”, a dark mammothian affair that finds inspiration in the doomy hard rock of Black Sabbath and Dio and provides a perfect conclusion to this epic but overall mellow and melancholic album.

If I were to nit-pick, I’d have to say that the album lacks a bit of variation across its 10 tracks. They all have the same structure (verse/prechorus/chorus/solo), explore similar moods and atmospheres (with the exception perhaps of the more upbeat “Dangerous Game”), and even rely on melodies that are constructed and delivered in a way that is not terribly different from song to song. While on the one hand this ensures that Long Live the King feels very cohesive as an album (something that Awakening was lacking), there is an inherent risk of having the listener lose interest and excitement as the clock ticks on. Fortunately, this risk is by and large avoided thanks to the excellent quality of the songwriting that ensures that things do remain interesting and exciting throughout, despite the nagging sense of sameness one may experience as the album progresses.

Overall, Long Live the King is probably the strongest album released by Narnia throughout their career. It is fuelled by excellent songs with memorable melodies, strong performances and a good production sound. It is the record I reach for whenever I feel in the mood for some Narnia and sits up there with the best albums in the neoclassical metal genre.