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Battlecross - Rise To Power review




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Reviewer:
7.7

32 users:
7.16
Band: Battlecross
Album: Rise To Power
Release date: August 2015


01. Scars
02. Not Your Slave
03. Absence
04. Spoiled
05. The Climb
06. Blood & Lies
07. Bound By Fear
08. Despised
09. Shackles
10. The Path

I first encountered Battlecross right around the release of Pursuit Of Honor, their sort-of second-ish album. In the intervening four years, they have built up quite a positive reputation and accrued a respectable following, but I had to attend at least three shows, meet half the band, buy War Of Will, and hear them on the radio countless times before I finally started to enjoy them. Just one of those bands, I suppose - but I took to Rise To Power fairly immediately.

As is always the case with Battlecross, Rise To Power is full of superb guitar and bass work. While not especially flashy, Tony Asta's and Hiran Deraniyagale's guitar machinations have a twofold effect. First, their riffs have a strange kind of warmth - a peculiar familiarity, not in the sense that they have been used before or recycled from other bands, but something that places them in a tradition of which Battlecross is the next logical torchbearer. Classic heavy metal seeps into their material as much as the plain thrash, death, and metalcore influences, which the overtly 3 Inches Of Blood-styled opener makes clear within seconds. Second, the riffs always have personality. I often feel that the guitars serve as Battlecross's focal point rather than the vocals, which galvanizes their otherwise commonplace style.

Battlecross have avoided a lot of the pitfalls and criticisms of 21st-century thrash by framing their work in a different context, moving with the bulk and power of a melodeath band and throwing around some nods to metalcore. By mashing together riffs inspired by classic heavy metal and cramming the results into this much heavier modern skin, they burst the seams of the melodeath genre and wind up with an alchemically-obtained thrash sound. Divining the thrash in this roundabout manner, rather than cobbling together a hasty mish-mash of borrowed Exodus licks, allows Battlecross a lot of room to explore creative avenues. Not to imply, of course, that Battlecross is now or has ever been wholly (or even mostly) a thrash band, but the conventions are integral to their sound and spill out everywhere.

Unfortunately, the second half of the album doesn't quite live up to the promising first half, and aside from the fantastic "The Climb," Rise To Power lacks the single-studded cast of characters that War Of Will had. That is not to say that the album lacks standouts, an assertion easily disproven by tracks like "Despised" and "The Path," but overall the quality of songwriting has decreased somewhat since War Of Will.

That said, Rise To Power stands strongly on its own and doesn't tarnish Battlecross's name in the slightest. In fact, the brief, sudden shift to Pantera in the last minute of "The Path" made me appreciate them that much more. These guys have a lot of potential to become a very big name in the modern metal scene, and if they keep this up, they'll reach the big time soon.


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





Written on 03.11.2015 by I'm the reviewer, and that means my opinion is correct.


Comments

Comments: 3   Visited by: 153 users
03.11.2015 - 04:19
UPDIRNS

I love these guys and this is another good album. Definitely worth a listen. I agree with the reviewer though they take time to grow on you. The more you listen the more their talents come to the surface.
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03.11.2015 - 12:11
Bad English
Tage Westerlund
3 Inches Of Blood- I don't hear it here at all, I like 3 Inches Of Blood-
This band Battlecross, looks good but I can get into it, maybe if it would start out 20 years ealier... not my band
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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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03.11.2015 - 13:41
Rating: 7
Hellcult

Let's see what they are made off
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And I see the blade fall down upon the head of lord in heaven
And Darkness falls upon the end of history
While I drink the milk of the Black Goddess and cry over the mankind

Black Moses is my name...
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