Doro: Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud

Doro has always seemed pretty damned cool. Every interview that she's done that I've seen or read usually tends to include no less than 10 shout-outs to all the fans out there and how much she lives and breathes heavy metal. How can you not be swayed over by something like that? I'll admit I don't have much experience with her solo work, but most people (myself included) still probably remember her best as the frontwoman of Warlock, and what we have here in her latest solo album; Conqueress - Forever Strong and Proud, is a traditional fist pumping metal album much like the work of her former band. Sadly, my fist doth not pump terribly much when listening to it, as it's wildly uneven and unmemorable aside from a few cuts.

Conqueress (as it shall henceforth be called in this review) is 15 tracks long, and almost a full hour to boot. I'm admittedly a fan of leaner, more focused albums, so this was a warning shot sent over the bow to me. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of amazing albums that eclipse the hour mark but when you are staying in your wheelhouse of old-school German trad ala Accept or Scorpions, you really better be on your game with the hooks and the memorability of the whole thing. Aside from a few fun tracks ("Children of the Dawn", "Fire in the Sky"), there's just not a lot to get excited about here. And unfortunately, those two fun songs I listed are the first two, which means you are in for a long, underwhelming ride after those two finish up.

The vast majority of the songs on this track are firmly in the "Balls to the Wall" mid-paced tempo camp, but with some of the worst lyrics you have ever heard in your entire life. And when they aren't bad, they are generic tales and yarns about rocking and/or rolling the night away. Had the songs been even halfway decent, none of that would even end up mattering. Doro's contemporaries of the genre don't tend to be known as wordsmiths, but they had catchy riffs for days and memorable solos. Doro's band just has (the admittedly adorable as a Heavy Metal figurehead) Doro waxing poetic about the usual topics with some of the most sterile and barebones compositions you'll ever hear.

There are some truly bad songs here ("Best in Me", in particular, is absolute slo-mo dreck), but a special shout-out goes to the cover of "Living After Midnight" featuring the Metal God himself, Rob Halford. If you ever wanted to know what that song sounded like after your aunt and uncle got 8 beers deep a piece at karaoke and decided to give it a go, well now you do. I love Halford, and I like Doro well enough, but I have no idea how they managed to make this classic song sound so unappealing and weak. Yeesh. There is basically NOTHING instrumentally that is noteworthy on the entire album either, and while Doro herself does (or maybe did) have a good voice, there are some truly baffling vocal runs on here that induce a wince or two. "Heavenly Creatures" has more than a few instances of this, and I just don't get why whoever produced this would do Doro so dirty like that.

So, we have 2 decent songs atop a whole mountain of mediocrity at best. Any fans of Doro will probably find something to like here, and good for them. But there is way, WAY too much good metal in this style out there to give Conqueress the time of day. Here's hoping the queen of trad metal gets her ship in order and delivers a banger on the next one.

Tracklist:
1. Children of the Dawn
2. Fire in the Sky
3. Living After Midnight (Judas Priest cover)
4. All for You
5. Lean Mean Rock Machine
6. I Will Prevail
7. Bond Unending
8. Time for Justice
9. Fels in der Brandung
10. Love Breaks Chains
11. Drive Me Wild
12. Rise
13. Best in Me
14. Heavenly Creatures
15. Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler cover)

Added: February 24th 2024
Reviewer: Brandon Miles
Score:
Related Link: Artist Website
Hits: 332
Language: english

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