Armored Dawn – Viking Zombie
Album Review By Rainer Kerber
Raucous, wild and with immense power
This is how the press release describes the sound of Armored Dawn. I have already been able to convince myself of this with an appearance in the logo in 2017. The band was founded in 2014 in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Two years later, the debut “Power Of Warrior” was released. It was followed by a tour through Europe as support for Fates Warning. The successor “Barbarians In Black” was released via AFM. The band seems to go their own way on the third album “Viking Zombie”. Since I liked the predecessor very much, of course I was extremely curious.
Thunderstorms and bells are supposed to catch the attention of opener “Ragnarok”. Then following catchy riffs backed by hectic-sounding keys. Then singer Eduardo Parras starts, whose voice has a high recognition value. Although the title comes from Old Norse (“The Fate of the Gods”), the sound has nothing to do with Viking Metal at all. On the contrary, that is classic melodic power metal, with a good dose mainstream. Only the lyrics drip before Viking clichés. In “Animal Uncaged”, the Brazilians already set a completely different fragrance brand. A colleague here said that one could already call that “melodic thrash”. Yes and no. Melodic yes, but is that thrash enough? At least, Armored Dawn are kicking ass here. In the title song “Zombie Viking”, the musicians again use Viking like lyrics. But the melodies themselves are too clean, with no rough edges. In addition, there are synth carpets. Also, I would rather classify this song in the melodic / symphonic metal area. In “Fire and Flames” Industrial synths are used, before guitars and drums bounce at high speed. A mix of bombast and bulky riffs can be heard on “The Eyes Of The Wolves”. One of the best songs for me is “Face to Face”. This is where Armored Dawn build on the previous album. Hymnic melody, vocals and outstanding guitar solo. This was the culmination of “Viking Zombie”. What follows is the melodic, but too pop-heavy “Drowning”. And continue with pop-like mainstream rock (“Blood Oh Blood”, “Embrace The Silence” or the Sabatonic “Rain Of Fire”). In between, only the rocky “Heads Are Rolling” is an outlier to the top.
To say it straight away, with the predecessor “Barbarians In Black”, the current album cannot compete. This clearly shows the excellent work done at that time by producer Seeb Levermann (Orden Ogan). “Viking Zombie” is not a bad album by any means. Again, and again, the musicians show their skills, musically as well as compositionally. But from my point of view, the Brazilians are experimenting too much with the sound here. They had already found. And this many pop influences are not good for Armored Dawn. There is still a lot of room for improvement here.
Armored Dawn – Ragnarok: https://youtu.be/MEKw69FMIL8
Lineup:
Eduardo Parras – Vocal
Tiago de Moura – Lead Guitar
Timo Kaarkoski – Guitar
Heros Trench – Bass
Rafael Agostino – Keyboard
Rodrigo Oliveira – Drums
Label: Whyte Label
Out: October 18th, 2019
Playing time: 43:56
Track list:
- Ragnarok
- Animal Uncaged
- Zombie Viking
- Fire And Flames
- The Eyes Of The Wolves
- Face To Face
- Drowning
- Heads Are Rolling
- Blood Oh Blood
- Embrace The Silence
- Rain Of Fire
Rating : 7.5/10
MHF Magazine/Rainer Kerber
