GLORYHAMMER — Tales from the Kingdom of Fife (review)

GLORYHAMMER — Tales from the Kingdom of Fife album cover Album · 2013 · Power Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Warthur
Symphonic power metal heroes GloryHammer debuted with this album proving the value of learning to walk before you try to run. Whilst they cranked up the symphonic aspect of their sound, went for an even more bizarre and silly storyline, and generally turned everything up to 11 for their followup, Space 1992, on Tales From the Kingdom of Fife they prove themselves to be perfectly competent purveyors of comparatively straight-ahead symphonic-tinged power metal (if with somewhat tongue-in-cheek lyrics) in the vein of Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire, with perhaps a few pinches of influence from elsewhere. (Some of the spookier bits of narration put me in mind of Bal-Sagoth.)

It's all good fun - but it doesn't stand out from the power metal pack, in part because the parody is so deliberate that they hit more or less all the same points other symphonic power metal fans do. Worth getting if you're sold on GloryHammer and want to dig into the roots of their sound (and the Angus McFife mythology), but I'd say Space 1992 is the better introduction to what they're all about. For me, the joke's palled a bit; there's just a bit of an air of insincerity to the whole thing which makes it less fun than bands who do this sort of thing and actually buy in fully.
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