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Ragenheart – The Last King
Self-Released
Release Date: 30/03/2018
Running Time: 48:42
Review by Dawn “The Metal Priestess” King
9/10
After not having reviewed anything for a while due to personal circumstances, I needed something with a bang to come back to. I let Rick decide what to give me and boy does that guy know my taste in music. Enter Ragenheart and their new album The Last King!
Ragenheart are a Greek power metal band, forming in 2003 and composing their name by combining the phrase Rage In Heart. Founding members were Angel Priest on guitars and John Koronaios on vocals and they soon enlisted “Speedy” Nick on drums. The addition of Nikos Michalakalos on bass in 2004 and Stavros Papazoglou on keyboards in 2006 completed the line up and they soon released a five track demo.
Kostas Athanasoglou (Steel Gallery Records) and Greg Varsamis (Eat Metal Records) listened to the demo and decided to help the band, offering them the chance to open a gig for the legendary Hair Apparent. With their continued assistance, the band had several support shows for bands like Cloven Hoof and Leatherwolf.
2010 saw the release of their successful debut, Ragenheart and now in 2018, they release their second full length album The Last King.
So what can I say about this album? Well, a few words spring to mind….fantastic, great, awesome to name some but the best I can come up with is that this is a true power metal album in every sense of the word.
This is a stunning album with songs combining influences from the whole range of power metal from early Queensryche, to Dio, Riot, Savatage and Warlord. The vocals from John Koronaios are superb, the melodies and composition are fantastic and the production is bright, clear and powerful.
The tracks are full of crunching, heavy guitars and harsh drums, but with the obligatory power ballad or two. There are no bad songs on the album and none that could be considered fillers.
I had this in my car for weeks and didn’t want to take it out again. Stand out songs for me were, amongst others, title track The Last King, Fear and Metal Rules The Night (The 80’s Outcast), which really does sound like it came straight from the 1980’s.
In my opinion, no one does power metal better than the Europeans and I absolutely adore the little twang that appears in European singers vocals at times. Koronaios is an awesome vocalist and he sings English almost perfectly but the little accent that appear every now and then just gives him, in my opinion, that little bit of an edge.
If you are a power metal fan, like me, you will love this album. Even the cover has that typical power metal feel! But, even if you are not a power metal fan, this album has element of lots of genres of metal thrown in, so there should be something for everyone!
I had never heard of Ragenheart before I had reviewed this album, but I will definitely go back and check out there previous album and also will be keeping an eye and an ear out for any new stuff they release in the future.
TRACKLISTING:
01. A Thousand Years Empire
02. The Last King
03. Fear
04. Echo
05. Mirror
06. Metal Rules the Night (The 80s Outcast)
07. Dreamer
08. Blind Alley
09. Forever Rain
10. The End
11. Our Mighty Past
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Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dawn “The Metal Priestess” King and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to do adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of [user_login] and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.