Review Summary: Summary: 17 years later, Adramelch returns with an album that is bigger, bolder, and has better production, yet fails to match the majesty of Irae Menox.
Adramelch’s first album, Irae Menox, swept me away. Not necessarily because of the great riffs, the vocals, or the guitar work, but because of the production, or lack thereof. In spite of thin production, Adramelch took me on a journey in music that amazed me in spite of it not sounding nearly as clean as Dream Theater, Devin Townsend, Death, or other progressive metal acts that would follow them. So, I decided I would listen to their “follow up” album that came out 17 years later.
After the acoustic intro finishes, you are introduced to I’ll Save the World. It feels like it came straight out of the last album as soon as you hear the opening riff and there is much clearer production. The biggest “weakness” of the album is solved right off the bat, and the riff, dear God, it is a killer riff, the vocals are great, and there is a solid amount of technical guitar work, a highlight of the album. And then you hit Cluny Calls. Honestly, I think Cluny Calls is the best song off the album, but it is a great example of what the album feels like. The song before it was amazing, and then it kills all of the momentum with an acoustic intro. Is the acoustic intro bad? Not in this case, again, probably the best as it combines acoustic picked chords with fat distorted chords, going back and forth until you hit the main riff and it is just epic, the vocals kick in, and I just love the song, but there are other times that the album just pauses to do an acoustic segment.
Speaking of which, guess what comes after that amazing song, a Choral Prelude. Once again, Adramelch hurt the momentum of the album by going from “Hell Yeah!” to “Aww” in a matter of moments, making an album that is around the same length as Irae Menox feel a lot longer. At times, you don’t want the album to end, ie the first two “real” songs, and other times you can’t wait for the song to be over so you can get back to the awesomeness, ie the interludes.
Broken History is another great song, with great dual guitar work, riffs, vocals, whole nine yards. Beloved Jerusalem is good, but it feels very similar to songs that came before it, just not as good. Then we hit by far the worst song on the album, Heap of Bones. The title is very fitting, as it feels like was just thrown together at the last minute to fit the idea of The Crusades. All that it serves is to pad the runtime and be a skippable track on the album. Then Dethroned in Shame serves to counteract the borefest of Heap of Bones, but then fails, because the last three minutes of the slow down the tempo and the album once again begins to drag. Darts of Wind is another uptempo song, that is once again good, but similar to Beloved Jerusalem, feels too much like other songs.
Different Times, Different Places is another stand out track, with epic riffing, dual guitar work, everything great about Adramelch shines through in this song, especially the riffs. Adramelch has some absolutely amazing riffs. Then guess what Adramelch does, hint: it is a theme with the entire album, they have a nice interlude with some talking over an atmosphere, moving on. The final track, outside of an acoustic conclusion (who else saw that coming), once again starts slower, but this time doesn’t change it immediately. It builds on the chords and the atmosphere of the slow, making it less of an intro, and more of a crescendo, before finally letting the guitars lose for some amazing dual guitar work at the end. It would have been a great closer, and I will give it the honor of being the fantastic conclusion.
All in all, Broken History has a lot of good to it. The riffs are amazing, the dual guitar work is astonishing, the singing is amazing, and the guitar work and solos might even be better on Broken History than Irae Menox. However, this album does struggle with pacing and cohesion at times. The album was definitely ambitious, a concept album centered around the Crusades, but unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out as well.
If you TL;DR’d this: I would definitely recommend this album to someone who enjoys Progressive Metal and Power Metal, but its flaws hold it back from being better that Irae Menox.
Recommended Tracks:
I’ll Save the World
Cluny Calls
Broken History
Different Times, Different Places
