ALBUM REVIEW: Earthbound – Black Royal
Self-proclaimed “sludge & roll savants” BLACK ROYAL are back with their third album Earthbound. Just two years on from Firebride, the Finnish metal melders promise this new effort is “filled with thunderous guitars and drums that trade blows at the gates of Valhalla“. Well, who are we to hold up this battle any longer?
Sure enough, Earthbound gets its stompy boots on the ground pretty sharpish. Chugging and crunchy, this opening track which lends the album its name is more like the march toward the battle, like a great army clunking and lurching toward their destiny. Epic in scope and full-bodied in its delivery, it’s hard not to be swept along in the current and before you know it, you’re into the battle cry of Ghosts Of The Dead. Picking up the pace with a real MOTÖRHEAD groove and vim in its bass lines which are pushed high in the mix, it’s an irresistible call to bang your head. There’s nothing massively complex here save for a glimpse at a guitar solo but it’s a solid, sturdy opening duo.
BLACK ROYAL have carved out a very clear and distinct sound, setting themselves apart from any one single band – but of course nobody is without influence. We’ve already addressed the Lemmy-like qualities but there’s a similar arena-bothering edge a la present day PARKWAY DRIVE, but delivered in a way that evokes a less clean KHEMMIS to some extent as well. You can hear that cauldron of influence and homage particularly on Phoenix Ascending, which manages to combine big choruses just begging for a gang vocal singalong, with a stoner doom chinstrokery that has every member of the band flexing their musical prowess at one point or another.
The pace barely dips through the first half of the album with the likes of Law Of Nature and 13th Moon keeping the blood pumping. More earworm choruses and hooky riffs are combined with more rhythmic grooves and shrieking, shredding guitar solos. BLACK ROYAL are nothing if not consistent, at the very least.
But then around the sixth or seventh iteration of this formula, Earthbound feels less BLACK ROYAL and more ‘grey common’. It all becomes a bit of a formless mass toward the latter half of the album and unless you are the most stalwart fan of this band and their very particular niche, you’ll find it easy to disengage. Yes, Barren Land has a really meaty riff that is fun to hop around to; granted, Queen Of The Underworld‘s chorus is bold and catchy; sure, Bear Cult has some texture thrown in with solos that showcase the strengths of the whole band; the problem is that by this point we’ve already had 25 to 30 minutes of exactly that.
While BLACK ROYAL play their shtick well, Earthbound could benefit from some variation. This is one that is perhaps best listened to as a pool of singles that you dip in and out of, or even cutting half of the album and putting it out as an EP or two.
Rating: 6/10
Earthbound is out now via M-Theory Audio.
Like Black Royal on Facebook.