Cryonic Temple – Into the Glorious Battle

Reinier de Vries — Sat, 22 Apr 2017 10:01:20 +0000

This is the fifth release of Cryonic Temple in 15 years. It looks like a frequent release pattern, but it isn’t. Between their last album Immortal (2008), and this new album, Into the Glorious Battle, is a hiatus of almost nine years. No idea what happened in between, and why it took them such a long time. When I say them, I should say Esa Ahonen, because he is the only member left in the lineup. Besides Immortal I also have In Thy Power in my collection. Compared to Immortal, the new album sounds a lot better and is more back to basic power metal.

After a bit of a scary intro with howling air sirens, ‘Man Of a Thousand Faces’ opens rather fast, with impressive tight drumming and interesting atmospheric keyboard parts in the background. New singer Mattias is a real gain, of course it depends on taste, but I think he is the best vocalist for the band so far. He sings in the mid and lower regions, and has a very stable and warm voice. ‘All the Kingsmen’ has fine crunchy riffs and again the keyboard has a rather large role. The lyrics of the album form a concept, but I did not have the time and the curiosity to find out what the story is about. Heroes, war, battles, and fighting are regularly used words, so perhaps that gives you an idea.

What catches my ear is that all the songs have easy to sing-a-long refrains, which makes it sometimes a bit mellow. That is why I don’t think everything is gold on this album. For me, the guitar riffs could have been a bit more in front, and with one hour of music, my opinion is that the album is too long. Somehow the impact disappears. Could it be because there are three ballads on the album? ‘Heroes of the Day’ has some Metallica ‘The Unforgiven’ elements and sounds a bit cheesy.

My personal highlight are the title song, which is an epic atmospheric variable song. ‘Mean Streak’ is not typical power metal, it is more of a classic in your face eighties heavy metal song with a simple refrain, reminding me of Saxon and Y&T (and not just because of the title). The final track, ‘Freedom,’ is also rather soft, which makes me forget the heavier songs and gives me the feeling that the album isn’t so heavy. After listening again, that feeling isn’t correct, beacuse there are enough faster and heavier tracks.

In the end, I have to conclude that the rather big role of the keys in combination with songs in the style of Hammerfall, PowerQuest, Freedom Call, and a bit of Dragonforce sounds okay. However, it has already been done 15 years ago by so many other bands. Perhaps it really is your thing, so check them out for sure and decide!

Cryonic Temple – Power Of Metal.dk

Cryonic Temple – Into the Glorious Battle