Genre: Heavy/Power Metal
Country: United States
Label: No Remorse Records
Year: 2020
Forging the fire & sharpening the steel for 35 years!
It took so long to finally release the first complete album of American power-heavy metallers! Were they worth all these years of waiting? Is the result worthy of the monumental EP “Vendetta”? Well, things are simple. Click play and enjoy an album that came to stay, an album that puts Glacier to the top of US power heavy metal.
Fresh and old-fashioned at the same time, it still seems from the artwork, without modernities, it exudes an oldschool character that we all wanted to hear. With only old member Michael Podrybau, some people might have thought that they would hear another boring reunion, but the band is here to refute everyone.
8 songs, 40 minutes, that include sticky choruses and melodies, incredible rhythm section with transisions that blows your mind! The album has everything and nothing is accidental. Even the tracklisting is such that it keeps you stuck.
Starting the invasion with the marching intro of “Eldest & Truest” and the amazing cut with Maselbas guitar pinned to you at once, the first song moves in uptempo rhythm like the next 2, “Live For The Whip” & “Ride Out” that really makes you increase the volume to the maximum and feel the energy they bring out! We continue with the melancholy of “Sands of Time” (which was originally instrumental), and next we find the epic “Valor” anthem.
“Into the Night” and let the headbang start! Pure madness! Double drum bass by Adam “The Octopus” Copecky, with transisions and alternations of solos and melodies, and yes, the album really has elements for all tastes.
Next song is “Infidel” with the bass intro remindin us a bit of Steve Harris, and the album closes with “The Temple and the Tomb”, with Egyptian melodies hovering and an excellent solo by Maselbas that really nails it!
Note here that in songs “Live for the Whip”, “Infidel”, Sands of time,are featured 2 old members, Tim Proctor (bass) and Lorren Bates (drums), as well as “Into the Night” and “The Temple & the Tomb” bass played by Phil Ross of Manilla Road.
Last, but not least, Captain Michael Podrybau. He is there, a beacon, guiding the ship called Glacier as long as it takes for each song to acquire its own distinct character with its melodic vocal shootings.
In summary, it is a perfect album, the production is exemplary raising the level, it sounds like a lot of work has been done in its writing, and that despite the new members it sounds solid and tied, dressed in the mantle of the ’80s, worthy successor to “Vendetta” EP. I believe that if someone made you listen to it without seeing a title, you certainly could not guess at the time it was written or anything.
An album that should not be missing from anyone’s record shelf and definitely the surprise of the year!
“The Passing of Time” showed us that Glacier proudly returned Eldest & Truest!
5.5 / 6