Raven Lord - Descent to the Underworld (2013)

Here comes a newly formed super band, Raven Lord. If you take a look at the member assigned, you can be sure to acknowledge familiar names. At least guitarist Joe Stump will do, and will attracted attention from the neo classical shredder faction. Raven Lord is quickly set himself as the classic heavy metal bearer to combined with modern metal sounds. Their debut album is Descent To The Underworld. With six packs of muscular players on the camp, how will it sounds alike? Let’s take a look.

The Rebel and Let The Show Go On, the first and third tracks is powerful classic heavy metal tunes, quickly remind us to the ’80 Judas Priest combined with Metal Church. Especially singer Csaba Zvekan is not letting a single notes sung below the 6th octave there. Now, the vocal works is really the asset of the band, in the same time something that need to get tame. Such problem seems present, in track two Atilla The Hun for example, is way too above the lung for the whole song. This song need to get frequent listening to get it come into our comfort zone. We also quickly discover that most of the song come with a basic formula in the chorus part, where there is a “scream” part then a “reply” chorus as again repeated in song Seal of the Cross. Not only a classic heavy metal tune, we also got something rock n roll feel in Promised Land, which is a hard rock swing applied in it. Settle The Score started with lengthy Joe Stump’s neo classical shred, this cross genre into heavy metal tune gives us a slight reminiscence to early Yngwie Malmsteen year in Alcatrazz and Rising Force era. However, the party quickly ended start from Black Friar, as the remaining of the tunes are mostly covered little variation over the same basic formula, riff and song writing.

Of course for those looking for killer neo classical licks, and those interested to listen Joe Stump in vocalize music, Descent to the Underworld is amazing showpiece of his skills. The least things to complaint is the sounds between George Karafotis’ thrash metal tune and Joe Stump’s neo classical tones is a bit a gap in final mixing. It seems Joe Stump always coming from nowhere and shred the solos out with his chorus and clean distortion, as opposed to George's brutal power chord. Nonstop double pedal drums from ex Blaze Bayley drummer, Larry Paterson is leading a team of bassist Jamie Mallender, who played in ex Black Sabbath singer Tony Martin’s band and keyboardist Alessandro Duo. Overall this is a fun listening with nostalgic tunes from American classic heavy metal. The extreme voice of Csaba Zvekan shine well in the Rebel and Let The Show Go On, but the footnotes is, they need to limit Csaba gone into throat hanging pitch in some cases. For a heavy metal with Judas Priest combined with Yngwie Malmsteen-like neo classical licks, come listen to Raven Lord's Descent to the Underworld.

Metal Harem class: ******* seven stars out of ten

Raven Lord – Descent to the Underworld 2013
Buy it here

1. The Rebel
2. Atilla The Hun
3. Let The Show Go On
4. Seal of the Cross
5. Promised Land
6. Settle The Score
7. Black Friar
8. World Out of Steel
9. Revelation
10. Metal Knights
11. Sun God

Raven Lord are:
Csaba Zvekan (Killing Machine, Sardonyx, Emergency) – Vocals
Joe Stump (Holy Hell, Reign of Terror) - Lead Guitars
George Karafotis (Vermillion Days, Operation X) – Guitar
Jamie Mallender (Tony Martin Band, ex-Black Sabbath) – Bass
Lawrence "Larry" Paterson (Blaze Baley, Iron Knights) – Drums
Alessandro Duo (Voodoo Highway) - Keyboards