Dragonforce are an oddity in the metal world, a commercially viable power metal band. They have shifted thousand upon thousand of copies of their four studio albums and play to packed venues worldwide. This is made all the more impressive when you consider they have done it in less than ten years. If you can name me another power metal band that can command that size of audience outside of mainland
Europe I would be very surprised.
Indeed, here in the UK it's completely unheard of for a power metal band to play to around 2000 people a night but
Dragonforce have been doing that consistently for the past few years.
The question remains how on earth did they manage this kind of success? I think a major factor was a case of right place, right time. In the UK during the 90's metal had taken a battering, no one was really interested in hearing traditional metal when they could listen to a fat guy in a red cap sing about breaking stuff, which sounds like a cliché today but sadly it's the truth.
Then a couple of years after the turn of the century, nu-metal became passé. People were looking around for something new and there were rumblings of this style of music called power metal which had become vogue again in
Europe through bands like Hammerfall,
Edguy and Blind Guardian.
UK magazines like Metal Hammer were highly condescending about this style of music; it was xenophobically disparaged as
"music for fat Germans to get drunk to at European festivals".
Then
Dragonforce came along with their ludicrously fast version of this style and suddenly here was a UK based band that the press could get behind.
It wasn't all hype thankfully; the bands debut
Valley Of The Damned was a superb release brimming with hooks, riffs and mind-boggling solos. Their second album
Sonic Firestorm upped the ante in terms of production and technicality even if it did lose a sense of direction.
It was their third album, 2006's
Inhuman Rampage that took
Dragonforce into the big time, despite older fans like myself being a bit jaded with it's all too familiar sound, there was a new audience primed to receive this release with open arms.
Suddenly the band were booking venues to accommodate audiences 3-4 times larger than the 300-400 people they were playing to on the Sonic Firestorm tour.
To be fair to the band, it wasn't all down to the media; they toured their arses off with this album, hitting loads of major towns and cities all over the world 2-3 times in the couple of years following the albums release. This ensured a loyal worldwide fan base the band could depend on.
I witnessed the band several times on that tour and towards the end it was obvious they were become a tad jaded. They were still crazily energetic on stage but things were beginning to seem more than a little forced.
The band took some time out to hit the recording studio, returning in 2008 with
Ultra Beatdown. This lead, of course to another massive worldwide tour and also to the point of this rambling review, a live album recorded on the UK leg of said tour entitled
Twilight Dementia.
I had been rather sceptical about a live
Dragonforce record as I always found their live shows entertaining but a bit overlong. They are also notorious for having some rough edges, certainly a show I caught in Sweden in 2006 featured a thoroughly wasted Sam Totman fudging more than a few leads and ZP's vocals, which took a bit of a pounding on the massive Inhuman Rampage tour, were pretty rough by the end of it.
I was presently surprised that upon listening to Twilight Dementia I found myself thoroughly enjoying the two cd's contents. Perhaps it's the removal of the vagaries of dodgy venue PA systems and the smoothing over of some of these rough edges by studio magic but I found myself spinning them several times over the course of a few days and only rarely did I get bored.
The production's spot on, with the all the bands instruments coming through clearly when need be. The audience levels are a little quiet at times but can be heard at all the important moments, such as a great version of
Operation Ground And Pound recorded in my hometown of Glasgow where you get to hear a couple thousand Scots singing loud and clear at the end of each chorus.
The level of technicality in their playing is as always, astounding. In particular the version of
Solders Of The Wasteland that rounds off cd1 is superb as it showcase not only the talents of guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman and the keyboard wizardry of Vadim Pruzhanov but also the no-nonsense blast-beating of former Bal-Sagoth drummer Dave Mackintosh. I would comment on bassist Freddy Leclercq but as DF fans know, the bass lines in their songs are never anything spectacular, although he does contribute some nice (if slightly out of place) black metal growls at points.
Another cd 1 highlight is a terrific version of one of my favourite
Dragonforce tracks, the uplifting ballad
Starfire. This song shows that while frontman ZP Theart (who has now departed the band) may not have the most astounding voice in metal its still strong and versatile.
Although in saying this, his voice definitely isn't as sturdy as it once was. There are points where it is very noticeable he is singing lower than the recorded versions. The most obvious of these is on the surprise inclusion of Valley Of The Damned's Japanese bonus track
Where Dragon's Rule. I'm happy the song is included as it's a very strong track with the kind of epic fantasy themes that I wish the band hadn't left behind but it sounds like instruments have been tuned down to accommodate the lower range vocals.
His stage banter too can be a little annoying on record. He constantly spouts slightly embarrassing lines like "I WANNA SEE ALL THOSE HANDS MOTHERFUCKERS" during the middle of songs (I don't know about you but I wish that word could be removed from the vocabulary of metal singers, its painfully overused and sounds completely phoney). He even makes some jokes during solo sections, which may be funny in a live context but is irritating when listening to it on the album. The rest of the band don't fare much better in the banter stakes as their wise cracks don't ever seem to get much of a laugh from the audience, again perhaps you had to be there.
The track listing also contains another surprise in the form of
Strike Of The Ninja, an oriental themed number recorded by the bands joke alter ego
Shadow Warriors. It's the shortest song on record and would have made me very happy to see it preformed live as I rather enjoyed the throwaway, fun
Power Of The Ninja Sword demo. On the album its inclusion is perhaps questionable due to other songs that could have replaced it but it's nice to see a band including something for the hardcore fans.
The album is rounded off with the bands biggest song
Through The Fire And Flames (You know the one, all your non-metal mates thought it was a joke song when they heard it on Guitar Hero 3) and you can hear the crowd going really wild for it. Also see if you can spot the rude word change hidden in the song.
This is a more than worthwhile purchase for any
Dragonforce fan as along with the release of the re-mastered version of Valley Of The Damned (check out my
review) has reunited my passion for a band that hadn't been on my radar for quite a while.
It also serves as a marker for the end of an era as the band are still searching for a replacement for their long serving frontman. It will now be very interesting to see if a new lead singer can spark a fresh creative light in the band and perhaps even generate some newfound variety in their currently etched in stone sound.
Written by
Stuart Saturday, December 11, 2010
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