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New Music Reviews, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, AOR, Alternative Rock, Alternative Metal
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Victory At Hand: The Empire
Victory At Hand: The Empire
Keyboard-Driven Melodic Metal Rock
3.0/5.0
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Unsigned/Self-released
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 01.04.2020 | Released: 03.04.2020
Victory At Hand is a new melodic hard and heavy band featuring the collaboration of Finnish singer Jone (Suicide Hotline, Twolslide) and British producer Alex Kron (Guiltz N Pleasurez). Two years ago they dropped a single, Still Standing, featuring Passion vocalist Dan Rossall. Now the duo offers their first studio album, The Empire. It's a concept album telling the story of the rise and demise of a movie theater from the 1930's to present day.
Victory At Hand
I'll try to make my observations brief in this review as I didn't really like the album. Here's why. What you have with Victory At Hand is a musical combination of melodic hard rock and heavy metal driven largely by keyboards. Keyboards being the keyword and focal point. Certainly, every song arrangement includes vocals and vocal harmony, guitars for riff harmony, bass and drums (either or both could be from programming; I don't know), and an emphasis on song melody and groove with catchy refrains. These are all very fine elements. Yet all these things are led by and superceded by the predominant keyboards. And all things in every song lead to an elaborate synth solo. As far as I could hear, there are no guitar solos. I do not care for any hard rock or heavy metal genre or band where everything revolves around the keyboards. Simple. But that's not to say that Victory At Hand is not succeeding at doing that very thing. They are indeed. Ergo, if you like completely synth-driven melodic metal rock, you will enjoy The Empire.
The Bottom Line
If you like completely synth-driven melodic metal rock, you will enjoy Victory At Hand's The Empire. I do not like the former and so did not enjoy the latter.
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Formed 23 years ago, Finland's Excalion has had a turbulent musical career. Before releasing a trio of albums between 2005 and 2010, they had personnel changes. Currently, only the drummer and keyboard ... [ Read More ]