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Reviewing a album of the swedish power metal icon Tad Morose has been a dream I always had. So you can easily imagine how I felt when the "March Of The Obsequious" album hit my inbox. I've been more than excited when the download started. Have I been disappointed or am I glad about the new songs?
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| A look upon the present line-up of Tad Morose. |
To make it short. Tad Morose deliver quality music. They've always sticked to the formula to release music worth listening to.
This also goes for the new album. It heavily hits the same route that the predecessors of the "new" era that the Revenant LP started have set up.
The music is comprised of pure metal riffing. The drums and bass guitars heavily follow on the trails of the compositions. I think it's a no-brainer up to this point for many metal heads.
Inside view on each track
The title track and "Witches Dance" benefit of the vocals and go in straight without doubts. It's just with track number three that things become a bit harder. The high pitched vocals climb to the max on this tune. That's of high quality but sometimes I would like to see them set a bit lower because it can be a bit too much of it all at times.
This goes very much for the next number, too. A solid midtempo song but the vocals leave a feeling of overload behind.
Happily the next one "Dying" offers more variations, some even a bit unusual for the Swedish band.
"Escape" returns to the fine tradition of compact riffage mixed up with power pushing drums - a combination that leaves room for evolution of the track through it's duration. Such songs go in quickly.
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| The cover art has become darker than on all the previous releases. |
"A Trail Of Sins" comes with nice melody blocks and solid riffing. I think those melodies should point a bit to the old Tad Morose Records, those days where the band still used keyboards. I love those songs and it's cool to see the band pays sort of hommage to those days when they started releasing music (yet at a more progressive level).
This calls for more and the band heeds to this with "A Quilt Of Shame". A good midtempo creeper with a lot of changes in the vocals. Sometimes these composition feels like a journey in my mind.
"The Legion" unvels itself as a midtempo and very loud vocal oriented song. The mix sets a spot on the vocals that aim for high peaks. Once again I think less could have been more here. High vocal performance is great but please not that often.
The album closer shows few softer notes coming in at the start and changing into rougher territory shortly afterwards.
This scheme carries on through the whole song. A good idea to finish the record in a more unusual way.
Is it worth it?
The whole album is mixed to a loud volume so make sure to chose the volume control carefully.
Most songs are great but I'd like to hear the band mixing the next album a different way with less loud high vocals. It could make the music more variable this way.
Besides that don't hesitate to give "March Of The Obsequious" a try because it's still a well outworked album with some fine surprises for those who are longtime fans of the band.
You can listen to the full record on a digital service of your choice. This overview offers links to Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music as well as to Spotify and Apple Music.
The webshop of GMR Music holds the chance to order physical copies on Vinyl, undead Compact Disc and even a Digipack with signed card and pin.
