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CLOVEN HOOF – Who Mourns For The Morning Star - 7/107/10
Summary
High Roller Records
Release date: April 21, 2017
User Review
( votes)Cloven Hoof, the Wolverhampton, UK, NWOBHM pioneers, have returned with their 2nd release on High Roller Records entitled, Who Mourns For The Morning Star. The band has a new line-up reflecting a cross-Atlantic feel with Dallas, Texas, based ASKA bandmates, vocalist, George Call, and drummer, Danny White. Lee Payne, the bass guitarist, creative mastermind and lone remaining founding member is the driving force behind the evolution of the band from Traditional Heavy Metal to the modern Power Metal sound of this album.
The production places the five octave range of Call’s vocals mixed front and center for most songs. This works fairly well as Call delivers the power and the range not found in a lot of bands in this genre. Unfortunately, it can hurt a song such as “Star Rider”, when the chorus is repetitive and a song such as “Go Tell The Spartans” when there is too much lyrical content.
The highlights of the album occur when the band channels Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. The songs “Neon Angels” and “Time To Burn” have the straight ahead Biker Metal riffing of “Heading Out To The Highway” and “Painkiller” with the vocals kept in a powerful midrange punctuated by high notes. The last song and capstone to the album, “Bannockburn”, is a song reminiscent of “Paschendale”. Its many textures showcase the band’s song writing, vocals, and musicianship.
Overall, this album delivers Power Metal with a core of NWOBHM sure to please old Cloven Hoof fans and create new ones.
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Disappointing effort by Cloven Hoof. Perhaps too many line-up changes over recent years. They once had a killer line-up and sound for the EYE OF THE SUN album back in the early 2000’s, and delivered some good work subsequent to that, but this album falls short. The Reviewer mentions several songs that remind of other songs … he may have been a little kind there. Listen closely and you may find half of the album “borrows” riffs and melodies from some recognizable to semi-recognizable counterparts in the Traditional Metal subgenre. George Call is way too strong in the mix and tends to “over sing” with too much unjustified emotion on several of the tracks. I was really looking forward to this release … but so far it’s the biggest disappointment of 2017.