adg211288 Seven Kingdoms is the self-titled second album by US power metal act Seven Kingdoms. The album was released in 2010. Unlike the band’s debut album Brothers of the Night (2007), which was a self-released affair Seven Kingdoms was released through Nightmare Records. While the debut focused on lyrics based on the A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R. R. Martin Seven Kingdoms has no recurring theme and focuses on different topics.

Having parted ways with vocalist Bryan Edwards between albums, Seven Kingdoms, instead of replacing him with a new man, instead brought in a female vocalist, Sabrina Valentine, to handle the clean vocals of their music. Since Bryan also growled a lot on the debut the harsh vocal duties were handled by new bassist Miles Neff on the album, resulting in something of a beauty and the beast style of vocal team although the amount of growling does feel lessened with the departure of Bryan, and would be removed from the Seven Kingdoms sound entirely on the following album The Fire is Mine (2012), so Seven Kingdoms can be seen as the first step toward the band’s shift into a pure power metal sound with female vocals.

Even with Miles Neff’s growling on some of the songs, the album generally doesn’t feel like it is part death metal like Brothers of the Night did. That may be because Neff’s growl isn’t anywhere near as strong as the one Edwards used, but the music itself tends to stick more often to power metal compared to the debut, although there are parts to it that sound even more like power-thrash, even more so than the first album, with Eyes To The North and the self-titled title track being prime examples of this sound. The latter song, which closes the album, doesn’t sound too dissimilar to Iced Earth’s sound, albeit with female vocals. The song also features a guest vocal slot from then Crimson Glory vocalist Wade Black.

Seven Kingdoms also parted ways with their keyboardist John Zambrotto (though he is featured in the cast of backing vocals featured on the album) between albums and these duties have been regulated to drummer Keith Byrd. The lack of a full-time dedicated keyboardist isn’t really felt as Seven Kingdoms’ music was never that keyboard dominant. They’re most definitely a power metal band that remembers that guitars are meant to drive a metal album. It is much more focused on power metal than the debut was though so it does contain some of the elements that the genre’s detractors would call cheesy such as excessive backing vocals, but Seven Kingdoms has a tasty kind of cheese about it which is very much offset by how heavy the music is, as well as the growling vocals. It may be direct to say it, but I think is anyone honestly has a problem with how this sounds then they’re just being narrow-minded, because last time I checked intense riffing, great leads and killer vocals were a sign of quality metal, not something to disparage.

Despite some changes, Seven Kingdoms maintains the high standard of Brothers of the Night. While perhaps a little less unique I can’t deny given my feelings towards following album The Fire is Mine that the switch to female lead vocals was the right move for Seven Kingdoms’ music. Honestly they didn’t really need Miles Neff growling on this album as it does give the album something of transitional feel between Brothers of the Night and The Fire is Mine, which obviously I wouldn’t be able to state if I didn’t have the benefit of reviewing the album now it’s a couple of years old, but I think that this may have something to do with the reason why I don’t actually think Seven Kingdoms is quite as good as Brothers of the Night. Well the fact that the song Thunder of the Hammer also comes across as a little ridiculous may play a part as well, but this isn’t enough to significantly lower my enjoyment of the album.

I do think its testament to Seven Kingdoms’ abilities as a band that this self-titled effort is still a top tier album for me. Seven Kingdoms aren’t just another power metal, they are one of the best power metal bands on the scene at the moment and they are yet to make anything below stunning. I think Seven Kingdoms is technically their weakest of three albums made to date, but this is still a very much a must own release and for my money it was the power metal album of 2010, seeing off stiff competition from bands like Blind Guardian, Kamelot, Gamma Ray and even genre originators Helloween.

95/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))