Denmark’s own progressive rock heroes Royal Hunt are back with their great new album Show Me How to Live, and for those who don’t know of the mighty Royal Hunt……. Go out and shoot yourself. No, only joking, go out and buy this album because this is the best starting point for this band. With some of the finest progressive rock songs ever pressed within this one awesome CD. Royal Hunt combine: Orgasmic keyboard lines, chugging power chord based riffs and one of the finest voices in power/prog and symphonic metal to form an album which no doubt will be on most people’s top 20 of 2011.
Let’s get the negatives over and done with first……… Why are there only seven tracks on this album? Seven tracks are not merely enough to help blow the mind of the listener. Sure, the songs on this album may be freaking awesome. But just because Royal Hunt call themselves a prog band, doesn’t mean they have to adhere to the typical six/seven songs per album rule. If Royal hunt decided to make Show Me How to Live more like something by the likes of Pagan’s Mind, DGM or Symphony X, and added a few more tracks (preferably four or five) to the album , then Show Me How to Live would be a perfect album.
The slower, the better in Royal Hunt’s case and its tracks such as ‘Another Man Down’, ‘An Empty Shell’ and ‘Half Past Loneliness’. These are by far the most memorable tracks on the record and by far some of the finest examples of melodic, symphonic metal out on the market at the moment. The slow, bellowing thump of the bass line combines with the glimmering keyboard riffs to lay down melodic, but never the less powerful riffs that power through your speakers like a warrior’s sword through a dragon’s heart!
Thank god that vocalist D.C Cooper is back on the vox. He is a killer singer and will blow your mind from the first note he sings masterfully out. He can master the high and the low, the loud and the soft. But what is best about Mr. Coopers voice is that he put’s so much raw power and emotion into every note he sings. From the ten minute awesomeness of ‘Show Me How to live’, to the foot pounding intro of ‘One More Day’, Cooper’s voice amplifies, powerfully through each track. He is by far one of the greatest metal vocalists going.
Royal Hunt is a band you need to check out as soon as possible, and with seven killer tracks on Show Me How to Live, this band have showed why they are one of the greatest prog metal bands going. Can’t wait for the next album! [7/10]