Female fronted Metal at it's finest. Royal Thunder are an Atlanta band digging into their record collection of Sabbath and Zeppelin for inspiration and creating something refreshingly new out of those influences. CVI indulges 70's hard rock enthusiasts. You've got your Blues, your Doom, and your Psychedelics all wrapped into modern Hard Rock ideas with female bassist and singer Mlny Parsonz wailing on the mic. While I absolutely adore the instrumentation on this album, it's Mlny that really does it for me. I'm a sucker for girls with grit in their vocals, and she gets down and dirty with the best of them.
The album opens with "Parsonz Cruz" a Blues heavy rocker that descends into madness about 4 minutes in before coming out with renewed vigor for the end, starting the album off with a slow burner that sets the tone for the album. Royal Thunder wear their influences on their sleeves, and I like them about them. You can tell where they found inspiration for certain songs, and you can see where they went with those ideas, never leaving a pure carbon copy. After the 7 minute opener, we lead into Whispering World, taking Parsonz to a screaming stomper. As much as I love this one, I know that it's true place is in concert, a studio recording could never capture the energy and atmosphere of this track. It's about 10 seconds shy of 4 minutes and just rips through with screaming vocals, a catchy as hell chorus and a blistering solo. That's about how the rest of the album goes, a slower track that feels dark and ominous is succeeded by a shorter, faster stomper of a track. My favorite of the shorter tracks is No Good, a song with a definite Zeppelin influence, and even a very active piano line, just for when you thought the songs might start sounding similar. My favorite of the longer dark and brooding tracks is Sleeping Witch, a Doom Metal inspired track that Sabbath would be proud of. It churns and prods and just makes you move your head with them.
I can't give this album enough praise. I'm a huge fan of these modern bands taking these influences from 30-40 years ago and taking their modern sensibilities to them and creating something that's both extremely reverential and it's own thing. It's not a cookie cutter copy of the influences, it's understanding the core elements of each influence and filtering them through their own perspective to create something brand new.
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