If you want hair on your chest, you want to listen to bands like Greece’s Triumpher. Heeding the same warrior’s call as trad metal legends Manowar, Triumpher use a blackened, Bütchered blade to slay their enemies and conquer lands. A light Gothic touch further endarkens these epic battle anthems to form a fiery record chock full of fist-pumping riffs, unholy Judas Priest-esque vocal acrobatics, blackened tremolos, and dramatic baritone choirs. Most songs take on a marching beat, but the occasional freakout, shred, and blast affords Storming the Walls a greater sense of peril that threatens its audience with summary destruction. These are tunes for the mighty, for those in search of wictory and wengeance!
Opening suite “Journey/Europa Victrix” introduces its audience to Triumpher’s extensive arsenal of steel. Rasping wails give in to a bombastic, blood-boiling war cry that would motivate even the most cowardly peasant to the field of battle. Muscular riffery follows as “The Thunderer” and “Storming the Walls” usher in an exciting assortment of gallops, trem-picked melodies, hooky verse and chorus work, and stomping beats. In Storming the Walls’ midsection, songwriting dynamics reign supreme as highlights “I Wake the Dragon (Promachos)” and “Esoteric Church of Dagon” rip and roar with all of the unchecked fury of an enraged draGONE. Swerving between epic arena fanfare and vicious blackened speed, these songs expand this record’s scope and scale to continental proportions. Numbers like the gothic, yet thrashy “Divus De Mortuus” and the thoroughly doom and black metal-inspired “Epitaphios” carry the album’s immense momentum straight into closer “The Blazing Circle.” Yet another album highlight, this closer holds what might very well be the most memorable send-off for a heavy metal album all year. Its infectious chorus is sure to light a fire in your soul, a fire that calls to that replay button with unfettered lust.
More important than the strength of this album’s individual parts is their sum. While arguably a bit overlong at fifty-three minutes, Storming the Walls takes its heavy metal heritage and elevates its with a unique voice while maintaining a cohesive character throughout the entire runtime. Furthermore, excellent transitions both inside and between songs make this record a joy to spin from front to back in a single sitting. That’s really the best way to experience the album, so intimately tied are its various components.
Triumpher’s concept and musical core stand out amongst a crowd of stock trad worship acts, thanks to remarkably well-conceived writing and disarming execution. Rare is the debut record as compelling as this, but there’s no denying Storming the Walls’ POWERS. If you missed it, remedy your ignorance with haste.
Tracks to Check Out: ”The Thunderer,” “Mediterranean Wrath,” “I Wake the Dragon (Promachos),” “The Blazing Circle”
