Under the Grey Banner

My most recent metal acquisition: some actual metal (14-gauge ASTM A1011 sheet steel for my headphone amp project)!

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

All joking aside, I have finally been getting into Dragonland's newest album, Under the Grey Banner, just a year and a half after it came out.

Under the Grey Banner is a continuation of the Dragonland Chronicles saga of the band's first two albums, interrupted by Starfall and Astronomy. With several symphonic interludes and spoken parts, it is pretty much the band at its most Rhapsody of Fire (or early Avantasia)-like, but with a decidedly Gothenburg spin: where RoF has insane neoclassical guitar noodling, Dragonland has classically Swedish guitar sounds paired with rapid-fire drumming mixed satisfyingly higher than their southern European counterparts.

The concept of the album is classic high fantasy: an evil king returns to crush the peoples of Dragonland under his iron fist, a prophesied hero comes to the land, rallies the people, and fights to otherthrow him and save the land. Simple as this sounds, the songs are extremely good and have been growing on me pretty steadily. After an all-symphonic instrumental intro to set the scene ("Ilmarion") comes the read lead-in track, "Shadow of the Mithril Mountains". It would be nice if the minute-long spoken prelude were part of the previous track, but after this the whole band explodes with intensity unlike anything heard on Astronomy, and simultaneously more orchestral flourishes than any of the non-instrumental suite songs to fit the fantasy setting. Except for the prelude, it's one of the strongest songs of the album.

"The Tempest" following it is even better, depicting the mythical storm that deposits the hero on Dragonland. Its pacing is slow and truly majestic with a well-placed violin solo, almost a better version of "Supernova" (a song that dropped my jaw when I first heard it). "A Thousand Towers White", the most straight-up power metal song, provides a nice counterpoint with a rapid 3-time tempo to depict Ilmarion's wondrous encounter with the gleaming capital of Dragonland and the corruption inside it.

"Fire and Brimstone" has an ear-catching, surprisingly progressive tempo that allows for some excellent trading-off vocals that resemble an opera; the characters almost seeming to interrupt each other with their lines gives a nice sense of many things happening at once as Ilmarion frees the princess of the elves from being burned as a witch. I should mention that Fred Johansson, the operatic vocalist who voices the evil king, is absolutely fantastic and steals the show in each of the three songs he appears in.

I lied; "The Black Mare" is the most power metal song of the album, with galloping triplets almost worthy of Iced Earth. It constantly trades between mellow narrative sections, crashing orchestral chords, and an incredibly fast and triumphant chorus to make Rhapsody of Fire jealous (compare with "Dawn of Victory").

The next two songs, "Lady of Goldenwood" and "Dûrnir's Forge", form a natural pair, the first placing the listener in an enchanted elven forest with airy, acoustic melodies and lots of keyboard; the second evoking a subterranean dwarven forge with ponderously heavy guitar chords, crashing drums, and blaring horns (and a verse sung by the deep-voiced Dwarven Council).

"The Trials of Mount Farnor" is fast, heavy, and minor-keyed enough to sound more like Swedish melodic death metal with Jonas Heidgart's vocals; the slower pre-solo breakdown is also quite epic. "Throne of Bones" is the calm before the storm, consisting of an amazing and theatric vocal solo by the king. Consequently, it  is possibly the best song on the album despite being under two minutes.

The eight-minute finale "Under the Grey Banner" tells of the final battle between the forces of good and evil for the fate of Dragonland, and as such is ridiculously epic and borderline-cheesy, with soaring horns, reverb-overloaded guitar and drum crashes in the intro alone. After a few slower verses we hear a lengthy and too-awesome-to-describe instrumental section depicting the main of the battle before Ilmarion and the king (who, as usual, is the standout of this song) begin trading lines in their duel. (Hint: Ilmarion wins)

For my fans of epic/symphonic/power/high fantasy metal, this album is a must-listen; behind the cheesiness lie some of Dragonland's best songs ever