Two and a half years after “The Last Alliance”, these “Power Metallers” from Finland make their comeback with a new release called “Doombound”.
While in general all “BattleLore” albums draw their inspiration from the stories of JRR Tolkien, this is the first concept album. The band tells the story of “Turin Turambar” from the books “Silmarillion” and “Children of Hurin”.
Musicaly, “Doombound” manage to combine different types of metal such as, “Power”, “Goth”, “Folk” even “Melodic Death” sounds. The only tragedy in this mix is that the album is promoted as “Epic Fantasy Metal “!!!! Some time this absurdity of the various types of metal should stop. But let’s not change the subject.
The compositions combine the above genres excellently. The production, however, creates problems in the sound of the album. The band’s vocals remind something from Beauty and the Beast with female vocals and “growls”. Their vocal abilities are not something special and the production, mainly in female vocals; make their voices heard without any emotion. As for the “growls”, they often seem not to fit the piece. Also the guitars several times sound lower than the keys and orchestration so they sound like a secondary instrument.
So “Doombound” gives a good impression musically and it seems that band weakness can be located on the vocals and on the poor production. Another positive is that the album does not tire you at all with its length. It runs just 54 minutes.
The tracks that stand out in the album are, “Bloodstained” which opens the album, “Kormessurma” in which the lyrics are in Finnish, the “Old Gods” and the 8-minute “Doombound”.
