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Royal Hunt - The Watchers CD (album) cover

THE WATCHERS

Royal Hunt

 

Progressive Metal

3.62 | 25 ratings

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Tarcisio Moura
Prog Reviewer
4 stars This is a kind of compilation of never before released tracks, some from studio recordings and some from live gigs. The center piece of this CD is Intervention, a 14 minute opus that was recorded for Royal Hunt's The Mission CD but for some reason did not make it to the final cut. And I dont´know why it was not released in that album for it is such a strong and outstanding epic. It is also one of their longest and most progressive songs, and well worth the CD price alone. Lots of keyboards and guitar solos\interplay, great bass runs, shifting rhythms and colours. John west (Artension) does an excellent job here too. Alan Sörensen steps in (again) as the drummer - he never seems to make up his mind whether he is a permanent member or not - as well as backing vocalists Maria McTurk and Kenny Lubcke.

The rest of the CD includes live versions of such hits as Lies (from Fear), Flight (from their first CD Land Of Broken Hearts), Message to God (from Paradoxx) and Epilogue (from Clown In the Mirror). It also contains new studio recordings of old classics as One By One, Day In day Out (both from Land of Broken Hearts) and Clown In the Mirror and Legion Of The dammed (both from Clown In the Mirror). As a final bonus there is an edit version of Intervention.

Anyone who has seen Royal Hunt on stage knows the band is a great live act , so the live tracks are very good. Message To God may not supass D C Cooper´s interpretation but still the band is in top form and John West proves he is not only good at the studio. The new recording of the old material is also very interesting, with a superior production and proving again that West was a good choice for the band to sing any of their songs (actually I liked his version of the very early stuff more than Henrilk Brokermann's).

Conclusion: An outstanding CD, a good complement for The Mission. And a must have for any Royal Hunt fan.

Tarcisio Moura | 4/5 |

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