Band: The Batallion
CD Title: Stronghold of Men
Year: 2008
Website: myspace.com/thebatallion666
MySpace: myspace.com/thebatallion666
Label: Karisma Records DA / Dark Essence Records
Featured on: Loucifer Speaks exclusive!
Rating: 7.2 / 10
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There seems to be an influx of bands combining the best bits of Black Metal and old school Thrash at the moment. If you like this sort of thing then this is an excellent time to be alive, if not then I can imagine that the whole idea has probably become very tedious by now. I, for one, love this sort of thing. It's like the two parts of my musically personality can enjoy the same albums and "Stronghold of Men" is one of them. This is old school Thrash combined with elements of Black and Death Metal that should appeal to fans of Coffin Birth (a band that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago).
The tracks of "Stronghold of Men" are instantly catchy and this is something that caught me off-guard. I was expecting to have to listen to the album 3 or 4 times before getting into it, but luckily The Batallion have proved that theory to be very wrong. This album grabs your attention from the opening bars of "The Spirit of Masculinity" and carries until the very end of "Last Dawn". I kind of get the impression that The Batallion are trying to prove a point here and are attempting to bring Metal back to what it once was. The main feeling put across here is that of strength - and that's something that is often missing from a lot of mainstream metal at the moment. This band has bucketloads of guts and hopefully this will lead them to glory.
All of the songs on the album have a certain sound to them and this provides us with our main problem. While the songs are instantly in-your-face, it is often difficult to determine where one ends and the other begins. Perhaps this will become more apparent with further listens, but your average listener who is not giving the record their full attention may find issue with this.
Overall this is a very strong album and I would recommend it. It hooks you straight in with the first hit and leaves you wanting to listen to it again and again.
01 The Spirit of Masculinity
02 Born in a Grave
03 Detonate
04 Man to Man (Warfare)
05 Victims
06 Smoke Em Out
07 Hate at Last Sight
08 Tension in the Stronghold
09 March of the Veterans
10 Prove Your Pain
11 Last Dawn
