(Power Metal) Phoenix Rizing - Eternal Crusade - 2000, APE (image+.cue), lossless

Phoenix Rizing were something of an early outlier in the power metal reawakening of the late 90s, which was very much a collective revolution, but in no way planned or orchestrated by any one band carrying the banner for the rest. On their first album, the band offered up something that was a compromise between the newer European sound that was heavily influenced by late 80s Helloween, Stratovarius, later Blind Guardian, and a few others, and the older American style like Helstar and Leatherwolf, which focused more attention on riffs and aggression. But like with any musical revolution, a collective evolution begins to occur and many of these bands either drop off or start to imitate the more successful members of the style.

It was obvious during this point that the general direction of the style was heading away from the heavier USPM style in Europe, and although “Eternal Crusade” has some remnants of the first album, the overall approach is definitely moving more towards a stereotypical German sound with some Swedish additives. The most blatant shift in this direction is the character of Tom Piippo’s vocals, which have taken on a sound extremely close to Kai Hansen’s nasally, throaty, and less punchy style. It is mostly noticeable on “Hail to the Ancient” and “Hollow be thy Name”, but there are vocal passages littering almost every song on here where he’s clearly straining his voice in order to force it to emulate something that it is not accustomed to. He definitely pulls it off better than Thomas Hansen does on the first two Gaia Epicus albums, but it still doesn’t suit him as well as what he was doing on “Rise from the Ashes”.

The musical direction, however, has leaned more towards a folk influenced set of melodies, most likely brought about by delving lyrically into the realm of medieval history. While heavily similar to material on Blind Guardian’s “Nightfall on Middle Earth”, they tend to avoid the free flowing melodic interludes/solos Andre Olbrich uses and opt for a stricter division of sectional material. It is important to note that a lot of the intermingling between the folk sounds and the speed metal style has resulted in something akin to Falconer and Ensiferum (minus the harsh vocals), at either around the same time as they wrote the material for their first albums or slightly beforehand. The second lead riff on “Hail to the Ancient” actually sounds similar to those folk/melodeath riffs that regularly populate Children of Bodom’s and Ensiferums’s early works. Some of the songs also exhibit melodic and instrumentation similarities to Human Fortress’ first 2 albums and Galloglass’ debut, which were definitely put together after this.

While all of these new additions are interesting, I find myself preferring the songs on here that tend closer to the first album. “Where even shadows fear to tread” is characteristically the closest to the aggressive speed metal style that had gone out of fashion in favor of the more melodic style, although simultaneously they’ve woven in some brilliant lead synthesizer work. A good comparison would be Jens Johannsen doing a guest slot on Riot’s “The Privilege of Power” album with a more up to date production job. There are a few sections on the other more folksy sounding songs where similar things occur, but often for short durations.

All in all, this is a pretty solid album, but it just isn’t as memorable as the first one. Like its predecessor, this album has not been reissued and will likely be pretty hard to track down. But if you like what you heard on Falconer’s and Blind Guardian’s albums, this is pretty well geared towards what you like. After this the vocalist and one of the guitar players dropped out of the metal scene and the band changed its name, and along with it dropped what was a very unique sound for its time. It is a little unfortunate, but 4 of these guys are still making solid music in Highland Glory. The future still looks good for Norway’s flagship power metal act, regardless of the name.

(Taken from http://www.metal-archives.com/)
http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Phoenix_Rizing/5962

Tom R. Piippo - Vocals
Jack R. Olsen - Guitars
Yngve Olsen - Guitars
Knut E. Tøftum - Bass
Lars André Larsen - Keyboards
Morten Pettersen - Drums