Enough wise-ass. What we have here is Evernight, the fourth effort by epic fantasy metallers Battlelore. I dug into their older material, written by differing line-ups, and noticed that as the albums progress less and less folk-material is included. The band now consists of two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboardist and a male and female vocalist. The female takes care of the melodic clean vocals, while the male singer takes care of the heavy grunts.

 

The first impression this band gives you is that of a quite hard metal band with some melodic female singing and some keyboards, but as you listen to it more you hear that those two extra aspects really make a difference. The variety in the music is pumped up a great deal, there even are some relaxing moments. Luckily Battlelore seldom use the really cheesy ‘Kabouter Plop’-like tunes, that makes you envision a legion of dwarves partying in a medieval tavern. So to conclude my total impression about this band, they’re actually quite good!!

 

But I must say, the first time I looked at a band photo of Battlelore, I laughed like there was no tomorrow. It looks like Smeagol himself arranged the try-outs for this band. There’s an actual orc on drums, a fairy on vocals and a troll on bass-guitar. This goes too far for me. I mean you can like Lord of the Rings all you want, and I’m happy to do a discussion with you about that, but anyone who has seen Blackwolf the Dragonmaster on Triumph the Insult Comic Dog show wouldn’t dare and go dress like this. Well, I could go on and on ridiculing the way they dress, but that doesn’t erase the fact that their music is quite good. So any Lord of the Rings fanatic with a taste for metal (and I believe there’s quite some of those) can pick this one up. One band to join them all…