Vanlade: Iron Age

Sometimes you listen to an album and just think this is too metal and comes off sounding oh so corny, that's what I found at the start of Iron Age by the band Vanlade. But thankfully things proceeded to improve as their first metal release progresses.

Iron Age is reminiscent of power metal bands such as Hammerfall, who like to sing about swords and steel and all things mighty, at other times the power/thrash/speed metal band Helstar came to mind like on Vanlade's song "Wings Of Fate" one of their best tracks on Iron Age.

Vanlade like to keep the pedal down so most of this album speeds along with soaring vocals and guitar work motivated by double kick drumming aplenty, and yes some of the lyrics have elements of cheese. Speaking of which Iron Age has some seriously cheesy cover art, featuring a hot sword wielding mermaid next to a buffed dude raising his guitar with his other hand covering his old mate, how metal is that? To the production, and well it's certainly not an over polished sounding album which gives this an 80's metal vibe that suits the songs.

For a debut Vanlade are off to a promising start with Iron Age, though they have some work to do in order to match those metal veterans I mentioned above. If Vanlade can build on the stronger aspects of Iron Age, and with added experience come back next time with a slightly less generic release there is no reason why Vanlade shouldn't receive more positive feedback in the future.

Track List:
1.Intro
2. Iron Age
3. Evil's Bane
4. Blood Eagle
5. Hypernova
6. Wings of Fire
7. Bound By Fate (The Rising Dragon)
8. Life By The Blade

Added: August 17th 2012
Reviewer: Scott Jessup
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2227
Language: english

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