THE HERETIC ORDER – Evil Rising

THE HERETIC ORDER - Evil Rising
  • 8.5/10
    THE HERETIC ORDER - Evil Rising - 8.5/10
8.5/10

Summary

Massacre Records
Release date: June 22, 2018

Sending
User Review
0/10 (0 votes)

Baphomet gets yet another workout on The Heretic Order’s second album Evil Rising, and judging from how jacked the ol’ man-goat is on the album’s cover, he’s been powerlifting and gobbling clawfuls of ‘roids, mostly likely to get buff enough to impress the two nude witches kneeling graveside for his return to Earth. The album itself, is similarly pumped with all of the hackneyed gothic horror-house trappings– ominous preludes, demon voice modulations, screaming, chanting in Latin, thunderstorm sound effects, spooky organ on “Under The Cross of Pain”. Then there’s the band’s goofy noms des guerre: Lord Ragnar, Rotted Skull, Count LaVey, and Dr. Pain, and their stage costumes—corpse paint, zombie contacts and a forehead symbol for Lord Ragnar, one of Kind Diamond’s old top hats for Rotted Skull. Titles like “Scourge Of God” and “Mortification Of The Flesh”. Throw it all together and prospective listeners would expect yet another paint by numbers Metal album of clichés, and they would right.

But the songs on Evil Rising are quite good, so who cares? The writing, playing and production proves The Heretic Order to be respectful students of the genre. Lord Ragnar and Count LaVey do a credible Denner/Sherman tribute, giving many of the songs a welcome Mercyful Fate-esque vibe. Ragnar’s vocals are interesting in that he manages to sound like any number of Metal greats and goods—sometimes he’s like Ozzy, sometimes Blackie Lawless, sometimes Cronus—while managing to craft his own style. The second half of the album is even better than the first; “The Forest Of The Impaled” and the aforementioned epic “Scourge Of God” are two standouts.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Author

  • Daniel Waters

    Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.

    View all posts

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.