BATTLELORE — ...Where the Shadows Lie (review)

BATTLELORE — ...Where the Shadows Lie album cover

Album · 2002 · Symphonic Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-05-09
adg211288

Metal and Tolkien. The two have been mixed many times in many different ways and here we have not only an album based around the man’s literacy works, but a band that seems to be completely obsessed by them right down to their imagry. It’s been done many times as I said but that certainly doesn’t mean the album and indeed the band aren’t any good. In fact this is the best Tolkien based metal band that I’ve heard to date.

Musically most of these Tolkien inspired albums/bands are very different but due to their common lyrical theme and always going to be compared. Well I’m going to break with that tradition and talk about this album, because this is a review for Battlelore, not Blind Guardian or Witchking or (insert Tolkien influenced band name here). So what we have here is basically symphonic metal but with influences from power metal and to a lesser degree gothic, progressive and maybe even a little melodic death metal, the former due to the vocals which are a mix of clean female, clean male and grunts. The progressive comes from the fact that Battlelore do mix several styles of metal music and that some of their song structures are far from being standard. They are not progressive enough to be consider a progressive metal band however, the influence is that minor. Battlelore’s guitar riffs are very heavy and their keyboards add an extra layer to their overall sound. The drumming is impressive enough and the songs are very well composed, not least due to the fact that each is distinct in its own right and as Where the Shadows Lie moves forward the listener will not know what direction they are about to be taken.

Special mention before I talk about the songs to the vocal performance however. Battlelore have two vocalists, Kaisa Jouhki, the band’s female vocalist, doesn’t actual handle as much of the vocals here as on later records but her performance is stunning nevertheless. She is most prominent on Journey to Undying Lands and The Green Maid. The second vocalist, the male, is Patrik Mennander, who sometimes sings cleanly and at others growls. I must say, although this has no relevance to this album, that Battlelore was a much better band with Patrik on board, as the mix of three distinct vocal types gave them much more versatility. His replacement, Tomi Mykkanen, only growled on his first couple of albums with the band, and his cleans aren't a patch on Patrik's. Now back to the review. There is also one song on Where the Shadows Lie that has vocals done by guitarist Tommi Havo, but I’ll explain this in detail when I talk about the song (see ‘Raging Goblin’ below). To concluded this section however all I need to tell you is that Havo is a growler but he is much more harsh and extreme than Patrik is.

Now onto the songs themselves. Opening the album is Swordmaster. The vocals are dominated by Patrik, alternating between clean singing and his growl. The music is instantly heavy and fast paced, only slowing down for Kaisa’s vocal arrival in the clean bridge section of the song, which is the main case of where my unusual structures reference comes into play, as both main verses are done before the first chorus and we get the section which I called the bridge after only that one chorus section. The Grey Wizard is much more traditionally structured song and features Kaisa a lot more. Musically its more of the same but the vocal delivery is what makes the true difference to Swordmaster.

Raging Goblin on the other hand is an entirely different kettle of fish, and is certainly the most oddball track on the album. Here we lose Kaisa and Patrik and get Tommi Havo on vocals instead. It’s easy to know why this song is called Raging Goblin, and why Tommi’s vocals are credited as raging vocals in the album notes. The man sounds utterly berserk. This song is more like death metal that anything else but the lyrics, rather than make it seem brutal make is somewhat comical to listen to. The song is so out of place that I’m not actually sure if its inclusion was a good idea or not, as by the time it finished and the next track is starting (which in my opinion is the best track) I was left wondering; “Did I really just hear that?”

Luckily for me it was the fourth track, Journey to Undying Lands that drew me to this album in the first place, otherwise I may have had to skip back and restart it after the shock that Raging Goblin had caused me. The song begins with a very basic guitar line, before the second guitar hit’s the chords that announce the arrival of the rest of the instruments. The keyboard plays a vital role in the melody of the song while the guitars and bass thrash away over Kaisa’a clean vocals. The vocals quickly becoming a duet between Kaisa and Patrik, more so than in other songs because with this one it actually sounds like the pair are communicating with each other rather than just taking turns to sing. What is music epic about the song however is the fact that the music builds up a real sense of tension every time before Patrik begins a growled section. At other times the music quietens for Kaisa’s chorus section, adding another touch of a progressive influence to the album. The song is almost theatrical, as demonstrated in its music video.

At the other end of the music spectrum of Where the Shadows Lie is a song called The Green Maid which features only light music and most of the time only Kaisa’s voice. The clean guitar sound is very clean and while slightly basic sounding the tune is pretty good. It fits in well with the rest of the album but I can’t help but wonder if its here to balance out Raging Goblin. If so it does the job well.

Highlights from the remaining heavy material are Fangorn and Khazad-dum pt. 1 (Ages of Mithril). Fangorn has a standard structure with growled vocals for the verses, female vocals for the chorus and for the bridge Patrik switches to clean vocals. It’s more standard but very good. Khadzad-dum however only just misses out on being the song that I’d consider to be the album’s best, mainly because of the truly awesome guitar riff that starts the song and the excellent vocals from both lead singers.

The remaining tracks are Shadowgate and Ride With the Dragons. While good songs neither sticks in my mind as much as the tracks explained above. There is actually a tenth track hidden on the end of Ride With the Dragons which sees the band playing in a much more folksy style. It is however neither fantastic or entirely worthless, but being a hidden track I don't really factor it in the overall score given to the album.

Overall an exceptional release, not least due to the fact that this is the band’s first full-length CD. Highly recommended for fans of metal and Tolkien or fans of bands such as Lacuna Coil who want a more extreme metal edge to the music. It's also a great starting place for anyone interested in Battlelore even with them now many albums down the line.

(Originally posted at Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 9.3/10)