Golden Resurrection
Glory To My King

Tracks
1. See My Commands
2. Best For Me
3. Glory To My King
4. Never Look Back
5. The Final Day
6. Proud To Wear The Holy Cross
7. Golden Flames
8. God's Grand Hotel
9. Metal Praise (Japanese Bonus Track) *
10. My Creation


Band:
Christian Liljegren - Vocals
Tommy Johansson - Guitar, Keyboards & Backing Vocals
Stefan Käck - Bass
Olov Andersson - Keyboards & Backing Vocals
Rickard Gustafsson - Drums


Discography:
Debut


Guests:


Info
Erik Mårtensson (producer & mix)
Micke Lind (master)

Released 3/12-2010
Reviewed 30/4-2010


Links:
myspace
label

Christian metal - "great! Now it's time for Caj to bring out the sledgehammer again" is what everyone thinks who read my review of the label companions Divinefire earlier this month when they hear that. But think again! It wasn't the theme itself that made me crush them like cute little puppies, it was their obsession to have a message that compromised the music and no way to avoid it for us who listened. Sure, I don't like religion in music - no matter how it's presented but since this review is about Golden Resurrection and nothing else - let's drop that for the moment. In contrary to Divinefire, this band hasn't mixtured with the vocals to give the lyrics an extra obvious position to the listener. However, the theme is the same: God is great and when you follow his guidance it will lead you to infinite happiness and joy. ROFLYSST!

Yeah, at least they have humour (or maybe it's just me?), but musically it's a neo classical power metal album with a vocalist suffering from a cold. The band plays music as fast as a bag of crisps (or chips if you're American) runs out for a person qualifying for the 666 pound league and while they play this fast they try to sound like Vivaldi playing electric guitars. Golden Resurrection puts the guitars so much in focus that they almost forgets to preach about God and Jesus and this is what makes me use the half meter handle instead of the full meter on the hammer for the lyrical theme. Sure, the lyrics annoys me on 'Glory to My King' as much as it did on 'Eye of the Storm' but it's not more important that the music here and the reason in it self for releasing this album - at least that's what I think. Golden Resurrection is a band that makes music first, and lyrics later.

So what's the music about? Well, I'm still trying to figure that out, actually. To me it just feels like a bunch of melodies merged after one another that isn't going anywhere at all. They play fast as Hell and do a lot of meaningless virtuosity between the lines and then just get stuck chewing the same gum through the verses and choruses most of the time. Meanwhile you have a few songs where the band shows they've understood the whole thing with doing music, like Proud to Wear the Holy Cross that, regardless of its silly lyrics, is a proper song that takes you somewhere and not just a line of sounds without purpose, chewing silly words without getting anywhere. Overall it's good but nothing more, you won't be able to stand it after a while since the album only repeats it self and the same concept over and over: play fast, virtuosity, whine about Jesus, play fast, virtuosity, murder a prostitute, virtuosity and play fast as Hell.

In the end I must admit defeat and confess that Golden Resurrection actually have the same goal as Divinefire - to spread propaganda about God, Jesus and Christianity. The only difference is that they've cloaked it better in the music (the album cover however is pathetic). So in the end it makes no difference - unless you love to hear people nagging about religion, Golden Resurrection isn't a band for you. It's that simple. But if you love power metal as much as you love God and neo classical tunes, this album is heaven hidden behind the pearly gates that this band and 'Glory To My King' has created. I personally see it as a waste of talent to do music that is good but isn't getting anywhere after that. If I would be willing to stay put at square one then I now have an alternative to having just one book in my bookshelf - I can have both the Bible and this album. Because what Golden Resurrection and the Bible is to me are two excellent synonyms to the word "inanimate stupidity".

HHHHHHH

Label: Liljegren Records/Connecting Music
Three similar bands: Narnia/Divinefire/Yngwie J. Malmsteen
Rating: HHHHHHH
Recensent: Caj Källmalm