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Brymir - Wings Of Fire review




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Reviewer:
8.2

200 users:
8.15
Band: Brymir
Album: Wings Of Fire
Release date: March 2019


01. Gloria In Regum
02. Wings Of Fire
03. Ride On, Spirit
04. Sphere Of Halcyon
05. And So We Age
06. Hails From The Edge
07. Starportal
08. Vanquish The Night
09. Lament Of The Ravenous
10. Chasing The Skyline
11. Anew [feat. Noora Louhimo]
12. Reaver [Japanese bonus]
13. Skyline Instrumental [Japanese bonus]

Guitarist Joona Björkroth joined Battle Beast in the wake of Anton Kabanen's unceremonious departure, the point at which some fans began to despair that the Finnish sextet had become too poppy, that the "Beast" was gone. Well, first of all, shut up, because the new stuff is good, too [read: better]. But if No More Hollywood Endings is still too Hollywood for you, Brymir can offer five times the Beast.

On first stepping into Wings Of Fire, it might seem unwarranted to draw the comparison to Battle Beast in the first place. Where Battle Beast takes a strictly traditional approach to heavy metal in the midst of dalliances with sugary pop music, Brymir deals with a whole different dimension of heaviness. Wings Of Fire is first and foremost an exemplar of the extreme power metal style that has become Finland's trademark over the years: you'll hear pieces of Wintersun, Kalmah, and Whispered (minus the Japanese stuff, obviously) littering the place with epic blastbeat choruses, sanguine choirs chanting big words, alternating coarse and clean vocals - the whole glacier.

In fact, Brymir has more aggressive tendencies than many other artists in this style; within the shrouds of choirs, keys, and strings lie the bones of songs more brooding and deathly than anything Ensiferum or Children Of Bodom would be expected to write. "Ride On, Spirit" borrows the ominous brass of Septicflesh between blooms of cold choruses, and time after time the swarms of stabbing strings prove themselves more than the window dressing that they are for so many other bands. The band sometimes pushes into death metal when it drops the orchestrations entirely, and the occasional twist of a chord suggests black metal. When not as downright heavy, Wings Of Fire dips into an Insomnium-like atmosphere, a vein of melancholy that runs in the midst of these grand melodies and shows itself in the dreaminess of synths and the frigid indifference of certain choral parts. This sometimes manifests itself as a lighter, post-hardcore sort of sound, as on "Lament Of The Ravenous," when the dreaminess kicks up a little into higher registers.

But Wings Of Fire does have a sweet tooth: there are the dancing synths in the title track, the continuous epic velocity, and the catchy opener that begs to be played on a big stage. The sound is thick with layers of vocals and keys that outfit these heavy songs in attractive trim. There are certain cosmetic similarities in the keys and guitars such that "Hails From The Edge" doesn't sound at times like too much of an abstraction from that most accessible side of Battle Beast that they've been exploring recently. Perhaps it's nothing more than the sense that there's a common creative voice in these projects. It could also be that by this time I've simply lost my ability to distinguish between genres of music as long as there's a catchy chorus involved. Whatever the case, Wings Of Fire will likely be satisfactory to someone who can appreciate both the heaviest and most melodic sides of power metal.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 9
Songwriting: 8
Originality: 7
Production: 8





Written on 06.06.2019 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct.


Comments

Comments: 7   Visited by: 147 users
06.06.2019 - 13:40
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Dunno how to tell you, mate, but No More Hollywood Endings deserves its rating.

This album is really good though
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Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
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07.06.2019 - 01:50
Rating: 8
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by RaduP on 06.06.2019 at 13:40

Dunno how to tell you, mate, but No More Hollywood Endings deserves its rating.

This album is really good though

No More Hollywood Endings is a big step down from Bringer Of Pain, which I think is the best thing they've ever done, but I still put it up against anything they did with Kabanen. Of course, Wings Of Fire blows it flat out of the water in every respect. This album is legitimately good.
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"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
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07.06.2019 - 10:32
RaduP
CertifiedHipster
Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 07.06.2019 at 01:50

No More Hollywood Endings is a big step down from Bringer Of Pain, which I think is the best thing they've ever done, but I still put it up against anything they did with Kabanen. Of course, Wings Of Fire blows it flat out of the water in every respect. This album is legitimately good.

Weird take, but ok

If I were to rank things, they would be:

Battle Beast > Wings Of Fire > Berserker > Unholy Saviour > From Hell With Love > Steel > Bringer Of Pain > No More Hollywood Endings

With the first being a 9.0 and the last being a 5.5, and the rest something in between

I gotta listen to the first two Brymir records as well to see how they hold up
----
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
Loading...
07.06.2019 - 14:01
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
Good band good album good school
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Life is to short for LOVE, there is many great things to do online !!!

Stormtroopers of Death - ''Speak English or Die''
apos;'
[image]
I better die, because I never will learn speek english, so I choose dieing
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07.06.2019 - 21:04
Rating: 8
ScreamingSteelUS
Editor-in-Chief
Written by RaduP on 07.06.2019 at 10:32

Written by ScreamingSteelUS on 07.06.2019 at 01:50

No More Hollywood Endings is a big step down from Bringer Of Pain, which I think is the best thing they've ever done, but I still put it up against anything they did with Kabanen. Of course, Wings Of Fire blows it flat out of the water in every respect. This album is legitimately good.

Weird take, but ok

If I were to rank things, they would be:

Battle Beast > Wings Of Fire > Berserker > Unholy Saviour > From Hell With Love > Steel > Bringer Of Pain > No More Hollywood Endings

With the first being a 9.0 and the last being a 5.5, and the rest something in between

I gotta listen to the first two Brymir records as well to see how they hold up

Well, if we're bringing the whole family into the mix:

Berserker > Bringer Of Pain > Wings Of Fire > first half of Battle Beast > No More Hollywood Endings > From Hell With Love > second half of Battle Beast > Steel > Unholy Savior

And, of course, I also need to investigate Brymir further, because they may turn out to be the most consistent one of the bunch.
----
"Earth is small and I hate it" - Lum Invader

I'm the Agent of Steel.
Loading...
16.07.2019 - 07:49
JÄY
Metal slave
Well, they went and got too symphonic, for me
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20.10.2019 - 15:53
qlacs
"The Quaker"
Written by JÄY on 16.07.2019 at 07:49

Well, they went and got too symphonic, for me

At first I'd pointed to that direction as well, but for me it's more like the production. It just doesn't have the same energy and power as other notable albums. The low-mids are and some of the low end are missing frequency wise.
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