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Ivanhoe: Blood And Gold
Ivanhoe - Blood And Gold Art Work

Ivanhoe: Blood And Gold

Melodic Progressive Rock/Metal
4.0/5.0

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Massacre Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 25.03.2020 | Released: 20.03.2020

Every three to five years German metal legends Ivanhoe return to the studio. But their latest and eighth studio album, Blood And Gold comes with some personnel changes, adding new guitarist Lars Vogtle and drummer Bernd Heining in 2018. What hasn't changed is Ivanhoe's consistent commitment to melodic progressive music.

Ivanhoe - Click For Larger Image

Ivanhoe

Although some fans will quickly note that the songs within Blood And Gold, while still offering some complexity, are shorter, more compact, and so more engaging, almost with a sense of AOR accessibility. Alternatively, you could say Ivanhoe packs a whole lot of musical creativity in a short amount of time.

Midnight Bite offers listeners a strong riff rocker with some swollen guitar lines. With Broken Mirror riffs and keyboards merge to make for a heavy and dense musical canvas. The title track follows a similar path while it leads in the second half to spry key and guitar solos over some rhythmic drumming. Very sharp guitar riffs leads Solace before quickly leaping into a soaring solo, only to drop to the mellowness of voice over synths before strengthening once more to the finish. With Shadow Play, you get another heavy and steady rocker with a solid bass line, with some saxophone by Andreas Musch dropped in at the midpoint and the finish. Who doesn't love sax in metal?

Perhaps something of a curve ball, with If I Never Sing Another Song, Ivanhoe offers their first cover song. The song, written by Don Black, was made a famous and a hit by UK singer Matt Munro back in 1977. Afterwords the song became a regular in the setlist of many of his contemporaries (like Sammy Davis Jr). The Ivanhoe version was arranged by former Ivanhoe guitarist Achim Welsch, and it's rather compelling. All in all, Blood And Gold finds Germany's Ivanhoe in fine creative form, offering fans a solid album of compact, but potent, melodic progressive metal. Recommended.



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The Bottom Line

Blood And Gold finds Germany's Ivanhoe in fine creative form, offering fans a solid album of compact, but potent, melodic progressive metal. Recommended.

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