Them – Sweet Hallow

[nyrating]

24th September 2016 Reinier de Vries Album Reviews 0

When you give a band, or is it a project the name Them, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which influence the music has. Known musicians like Mike Le Pond (bass), Kevin Talley (drums), Markus Ulrich (guitars), Markus Johansson (guitars), Richie Seibel (keyboard) and Troy Norr “KKFossor” (vocals) take part on this album. Vocalist Troy Norr formed Them in 2008 as a King Diamond tribute band, performing shows with Mike Wead and Hal Patino. In 2014 he started to create a concept idea and here is the result.

At times his singing looks a lot like King Diamond and also the entire atmosphere is in King style. Also the music is plain heavy metal old school Mercyful Fate/King Diamond combined with power metal. Spoken parts, childish laughter/whining, spooky parts, high screaming, low whispers, hunting church organs, everything you find on a King Diamond album passes by. In fact you can say that this is a tribute to the King. I can really advice fans of him to check this album out. But, yes there is a but…. like with a lot of other things in life, it doesn’t beat the original. Many companies try to create the same taste and flavour of Cola like Coca Cola, but no one ever succeeds! I have the same problem with this album. The music is great and very well performed, which is very obvious with such a line-up, but something is missing. There are quite some strong songs, but somehow I can’t keep focused till the end. There are some weaker average tracks that just don’t have the same quality as a King song. Also the relevance of an album like this escapes me, but that is my problem I quess.

If you just want some good heavy metal KD style and don’t find the lack of originality a problem this is a very nice album. You easily can add a devil to my rating. I think I’m going to listen to ‘Abigail’ and ‘Them’ instead.

Tracklist:

01. Rebirth
02. Forever Burns
03. Down The Road To Misery
04. Ghost In The Graveyard
05. The Quiet Room
06. Dead Or Night
07. FestEvil
08. The Crimson Corpse
09. Blood From Blood
10. The Harrowing Path To Hollow
11. Salve
12. When the Clock Struck Twelve

Playing time: 54:12

Release date: 30 September 2016

Label: Empire Records

Website: www.facebook.com/thembandofficial

About Reinier de Vries 188 Articles

Once a metal head, always a metalhead. My parents thought it would only be a period, but they were wrong. I quit to explain the beauty of metal music to others that are not into metal, because it is something you can't tell in words... It is like explaining to a teetotaller why a cold beer is so nice on a hot day... I started with bands like Accept, Metal Church, Iron Maiden and Metallica in the eighties and I think I will still listen to them when I'm stone deaf and old...