MANTRIC MOMENTUM – Trial by Fire

An epic and melodic heavy metal opus by an act featuring the talented Christer Harøy (Divided Multitude, Crossnail) and Terje Harøy (Pyramaze) sounds like just the thing to keep me entertained today, so let us spin this visually appealing release a handful of times and see what happens, shall we?

An absolutely massive-sounding production and riffs as thick as tar with excellent keyboard orchestration supporting them kick things off, and the first half of the LP is both solid and interesting with stellar cuts such as ‘Course of Fate‘, ‘In the Heart of the Broken‘, and ‘New Horizon‘ delivering wonderful metal pyrotechnics. Outstanding vocals and first-class musicianship all around make this a tightly executed and utterly professional offering that employs many of the tropes and elements associated with melodic metal, classic heavy metal and to a lesser extent power metal in a convincing and focused manner. However, the latter half of the album is uneven with ‘Final Warning‘ and the cover rendition of ‘(I’ll Never Be) Maria Magdalena‘ being particularly dreadful, but apart from those two you can expect some good and well-written tunes. Should you need a teaser then check the title track and ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane‘ out.