Artist: Sacred Outcry
Country: Greece
Label: No Remorse Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2023
Sometimes you have to trust your gut and you have to give in to that irresistible urge to buy a record just off of some quick listens. Or maybe it’s just me. It does mean that one time your instinct was right, and you get a banger of a record in the mail, while other times hindsight teaches you a lesson that I personally tend to forget often as well. I don’t recall why, but something about ‘Towers of Gold’ just drew to me. Plus, No Remorse Records is an excellent label and reviews for the album were overwhelmingly positive. Below you will find my experience with the latest Sacred Outcry album.
But before we get into ‘Towers of Gold’ it’s important to briefly reflect on the band’s debut album ‘Damned for All Time’. That album also met with raving reviews, hailing the band for their take on US Power Metal from the 80’s mixed with the late 90’s resurgence of bands from the genre. While that may seem the basis to keep to the same path as much as possible, the band underwent a drastic overhaul since the release of their debut. With only bass player George Apalodimas remaining, the recording line-up for the sophomore album now includes guitar player Steve Lado, drummer Defkalion Dimos and former Lost Horizon vocalist Daniel Heiman. Major changes you could say, but after spending plenty of time with the record I can only draw one conclusion: it was all for the better.
Much of the formula of the debut is intact, serving us with Power Metal in its purest and most global form. The chugging power of the US scene like Manowar and Iced Earth, the rage of Hammerfall, the epic storytelling of Blind Guardian and Helloween, Sacred Outcry blends it all together in and epic and powerful formula with an Odyssean atmosphere. It might be a matter of frame of reference, but I hear a lot of the thematical atmosphere of the epic ‘The Odyssey’ by Symphony X back as well. Although to be fair, ‘Towers of Gold’ is less focused on the progressive technicalities.
That ‘Towers of Gold’ has been met with numerous raving reviews is not hard to understand. Simply put, everything that was great about the debut has been taken one step further. The heavier parts pack a harder punch, the epic undertone is more bombastic, and the compositions are further refined. While Yannis Papadopoulos did an admirable job on ‘Damned for All Time’, the vocals of Daniel Heiman are simply next level. He can carry any type of song, from heavy bangers to touching ballads, and his performance on ‘Towers of Gold’ is simply outstanding. Defkalion Dimos not only dictates the pace, his creative play on songs like ‘The Voyage’ take his role much further than that. Steve Lado’s guitarwork is both functional and blazing, but always maintains the right feeling without shredding for the sake of it. And George Apalodimas is a veritable Greek Steve Harris, and besides providing a vital pulse is often found engaged with meandering and inventive bass lines to battle it out against the guitar riffs. The keyboards are subtle and somewhat submissive to the multiple layers of vocals, guitars and bass, but their accents enhance the epic atmosphere of the album very effectively.
If I were to be slightly nitpicky, and I want to stress that it’s a minute remark, the placement of several lower tempo songs towards the middle of the album take a bit of the sting out of the album. Even though beautiful and carried by fantastic vocals the intensity drops off a tad. Then again, they do make it all the more impactful when the more uptempo highlight ‘The City of Stone’ rolls in. Following is the phenomenal climax of the album, the nearly 15 minute long epic title song. One of the darker songs in terms of atmosphere, it approaches the quality of Iron Maiden’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, ‘The Coming Curse’ by Iced Earth and ‘The Odyssey’ by Symphony X and some of the genre’s other greatest grandiose songs. The ultimate high in terms of harmonies, catchiness, heaviness and atmosphere, the song sets a new standard for the band that propels it right to the front of the current Power Metal scene. This is one of those examples where my gut feeling proved to be right. ‘Towers of Gold’ is an exceptional album, well worth the praise it’s receiving from all over the world.
