Holy Dragons
Unholy and Saints

Holy Dragons return with their fifteenth album now, it is the third that I write about for Hallowed and the ratings have been sinking for each album. This time they have changed vocalist, the founding member Chris has taken to the mike as well as the guitars this time. And listening to the album I can understand why, or did I mean that I can’t understand why because that would be much more logical as the vocals on this album can only be described as terrible. It is also a rather long album and I have to wonder why the band keeps going, because unless they find a new vocalist they will never be able to make anything worthwhile.

Stylewise it is heavy or power metal, nothing really revolutionary there even though they do have some more interesting ideas than the earlier albums I have heard. Mostly it is ruined by terrible vocals though, the production isn’t brilliant either so they are kind of let down by the sound and the vocals. The variation is fairly big though with some classical addition and a varied metal track list.

It is a mostly awful album though, the band cannot really put their pretty good ideas into good practise and when they finally come up with something great towards the end of the album it isn’t really theirs. I came to think of Kamelot when I heard the Grieg piece Solveig Sang, as Kamelot borrowed that part for their excellent song Forever. So even when Holy Dragons comes up with some great stuff it has been done better by some other metal band because I’d much rather listen to Karma than to this album – the quality difference between those two albums is so massive that you cannot even compare, they have the same Grieg piece but Kamelot’s 2001 release has better vocals, more modern and fresh sound and way better songs.

So, my conclusion is that this album is mostly terrible. And I think that isn’t necessarily reflective of the band’s capacity, they seem to be skilled musicians but if they want to shine they probably need to hire a good producer and find a decent vocalist, otherwise they will probably keep making terrible albums like this one. The fifteenth album might be the worst one yet for Holy Dragons.

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