Lords of the Trident
Frostburn

The trident lords are back with some Frostburn, their third album in a career that spans from 2009 until today. The band are sold with grande stories of a singer born out of a volcano containing metal and steel (like steel isn’t a kind of metal) in the beginning of times. He then found Socrates of Shred and the rest of the ridiculously named bandmembers and the debut album saw the light of day in 2009. It all feels a bit silly with this band, kind of like the Italians or something equally childish. But image isn’t everything, Rhapsody has a silly image but can produce wonderful music so maybe these guys can as well.

The cover looks typical European power metal and the logo as well and looking at the warriors and battles in the lyrical thematics of the album we are even more pointed in the power metal direction. And that is what it is, we get exactly the same as we can expect from looking at the album and the song titles. There are no surprises in the music of these trident huggers, it is plain and simple power metal, catchy choruses, some sing-along choirs and stuff, the standard riffs and the melodies we have come to know from the mainstream of this genre. The singer is also typical. Nice and polished production, they seem to be dead set on appealing to those that are opposed to progress – the classical metal fanatic that is, in many regards I think fans of metal and many of the bands in the genre are the most boring people in the world wanting to live each day exactly as the previous day, there can be no surprises because that would be scary.

And this album suffers because of that, as a critic I want surprises, I want the metal fanatic spitting their drink, looking dumbfounded and staring into empty space not understanding what they hear. This is not such an album; this plays to the typical metal fans, a classic middle of the road piece if there ever was one. Not a bad album in any sense, the songs work and the tried and tested methods of the power metal genre usually bring about entertaining results and this album is no exception. One can enjoy listening to it, but it is hard to claim that it offers anything we haven’t heard before because if I try to think of anything unique to this band, I can’t think of anything. If one hears a song by this band, one would probably guess it was made by some power metal band from the very large mainstream of bands that inhabit this genre, one would not think: “this is something I haven’t heard before” because that would be lying.

Lords of the Trident would certainly do better in my book with some personal additions to their music, and maybe if they had some hit songs on their Frostburn album. All the songs are quite equal, they are all good but none of them stand out. And no matter how much I try to analyse this album, I cannot really see any point other than it being an album for those who doesn’t want the world to change who feels safe in their boring repetitive lives that are slightly spiced up with some pain-by-numbers power metal. Pretty good but nothing that really stands out and where is the sense of novelty in this new album?

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