Majesty - Thunder Rider

Published December 27 2012

*=Staff's pick	Thunder Rider Warlords Of The Sea Anthem Of Glory Make Some Noise Metalliator Raise The Beast* New Era* Asteria Rebellion Of Steel* Metal Union*

Genre	Heavy/Power Metal	Tarek Maghary	Vocals
Tracks	10	Tristan Visser	Guitar
Running time	55 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	NoiseArt Records	Alex Palma	Bass
Release	04 January 2012	Jan Raddatz	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboard
Producer	-
Similar artists	Manowar, HammerFall

German metal with heavy Manowar influenced vocal melodies. Tarek and his boys have no problem on this matter and as long as they rock, who gives a shit? Nowadays it's almost impossible to create music never done before and if you try, you probably end up with a massive load of crap anyway.

The opener, Thunder Rider, is a catchy power metal tune and at first I liked it, but after a couple of spins, it leaves me without greater impressions. Warlords Of The Sea is a faster track with a Manowar bridge and the albums starts to pick up pace. Anthem Of Glory is, as the title implies, an epic track. A song with a cool verse and a decent chorus. This album's fishbait is the chorus of track number four, Make Some Noise. With a rather good verse, it looks promising, but when the chorus blasts in the speakers, I fall out of my chair, wondering what the hell is going on.

These four songs are nothing that will go down in history as their best work up to date, so when I listened to Thunder Rider for the very first time, I was rather confused. Luckily though, the rest of the album is way better, so don't lose faith. Better times are to come.

We're back to speedier metal again with Metalliator and with this song this release starts its way to success. Heavier track, Raise The Beast, continue the better second half, with its riffs and steady drum beat. Judas Priest influenced New Era is one of the better tracks, but the ballad, Asteria, is definitely not. A decent intro, but then a totally lame and boring track, which makes me press skip on my remote. I tend to not fancy lullaby ballads, I guess.

Thunder Rider's two best tracks are Rebellion Of Steel and Metal Union. The first one, a traditional heavy metal track with a captivating rhythm. On the latter, the band has invited a bunch of guest vocalists and with a stylish lead and a cool drum beat, this anthem sticks like glue. It's somewhat cheesy, but I love these kind of epic songs with rich choirs.

I think the album should have been produced heavier, as it lacks some power to give that extra push to the songs. A rather good album though, where the best songs are really awesome. Too bad there weren't more of them. 6 chalices to Majesty's new release.

See also review of: Rebels , Generation Steel , Hellforces , Reign In Glory , Sword And Sorcery

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
6	3	5	6	6

Summary
6 chalices of 10 - Tobbe