Forged In Flame is the latest album released by Claim The Throne. Every now and then an album comes along that is so good it is hard to put into words adequately, and one could simply review this album by writing, “get it”.
Folk metal is definitely the banner that this album falls under, however that should not mean that you pigeonhole it or dismiss it because of such genre. This is a magnificent heavy metal album regardless of genre!
14 tracks are laid out before us to devour, soak up, and quite frankly be taken away to another place as we carried on a journey through ancient lands and told ancient tales.
Folk metal this album is for sure but first and foremost it is a metal album with devastatingly good guitars and riffs, punishing drums and enough death growls to satisfy and delight any metalhead. But some things that set this album apart is first, the songwriting which is complex and intricate and never dull, monotonous or boring, secondly, the musicianship is on display at every minute with many sounds and different styles, great clarity, heavy moments, lighter moments, acoustic passages, beautiful clear singing and beer hall singalongs, thirdly they have the mix spot on between metal and folk, some bands have too much folk so it hardly sounds metal anymore, where others only put just enough folk elements in just to ensure they can wear the folk metal tag. Claim The Throne seems to know the right time to take you to in front of the fire at ‘ Ye Olde Pub’ to tell you a tale, and then when to take you to hell. Brilliant!
Jesse Millea (keyboards) provides the lovely sweet balance to the album with beautiful angelic singing that really provides a great melody and lifts some of the tracks beyond straight out blast you away metal.
The hooks and catchiness of the record cleverly come from the beer hall chanting singalongs that will have you humming the melody long after you have turned the stereo off. Genius.
Some of the standout tracks are World Grows Dull, Zephyrus( with its great vocal harmonies and hooks), Forged In Flame (the title track with good reason as this is a masterpiece), At The Oceans Edge, Essence Of A Scorched Realm ( true epic) and Darkened Seas Collide ( with Jesse beautiful singing).
This album has a great overall feel of storytelling with carefully placed sound effects in between tracks to bring the literary piece together.
Overall this is an amazing album with everyone in Claim The Throne delivering something special and would definitely be one of my albums of the year and as close as possible to scoring 5/5. Highly recommended.
Claim The Throne: Facebook
Release Year: 2013
Label: Prime Cuts Records
Category: Album
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Chris Rankin
