THE WATCHERS

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.

I would like to do the review about the band and the epical opening track and just a little bit about the others because they are not really significant (or even new) at all.

I already expressed my opinion about this bands existence in my review of Moving Target, by far their best album ever. I said there that this is a very intriguing band because they are from Denmark, are highly religious and play prog metal and also appear to be very popular in a.o. Japan. So if that isn't interesting I don't know what is. How on earth does a band of religiously orientated musicians come up with the idea to play prog metal ? It's an almost unbelievable combination. But in all fairness, this isn't really the most unpolished metal you will ever hear. It's tending towards heavy prog, it's extremely melodic and in the end it's mainly loud music, I wouldn't really want to call this prog metal in due form. I do know this is very much my cup of tea. And that's in fact despite their religious background because I'm not a religious person at all. I just love their music very much.

Next I want to talk about the epical opening track. And this is because we are talking about one of the greatest songs ever and of course that's just according to my personal taste but of course that's always the thing with ones reviewing, it's just one's taste. When I first heard Intervention I can only say: it blew me away completely ! The song starts with a sort of military exercise, a superior calling commands or something like that (resembling Battlefields of Counterpane by Grey Lady Down by the way) before after a while the music comes marching in or better said: raging in. An unbelievable hurricane of sound sets in especially if you play this one loud you will not believe what's happening ! It's extremely energetic for the next (far over) 10 minutes but it's still versatile and the build up is really superb. Also on this song there are very religious lyrics to be heard (Down on my knees for you father is an often heard phrase) but as I so often say, I'm not really bothered by lyrics and also in this case the music is the dominant factor for me. I would recommend anyone who likes the louder music to check out this great track. Later on on the album there's also the radio edit version but that's left pale in the background compared to the epical version.

The other tracks are average Royal Hunt material which means still great but also inferior to the brilliant opener. It can mean only one outcome: one outstanding track accompanied by good others is simply 4 stars for me.

This particular ROYAL HUNT album is either re-done older tracks or live versions of these earlier songs.The difference of course is that John West is doing the vocals for the first time on these ROYAL HUNT classics. And the guy can flat out sing, so for many these are improvements over the originals.

"Intervention" is on here twice. The first one is a full version at over 14 minutes while they end this album with a shorter radio edit of the same song. This might be my favourite. Quite powerful at times and keyboards race over top early. Some nice piano before 7 1/2 minutes. "Lies" kicks in with riffs after 2 minutes as the crowd roars on this live version. Some orchestral sounds on this one too. "Flight" opens with a scream from West before it kicks in with keys leading. Not a fan.

"Message To God" might be their most popular tune. The crowd certainly gets into this one. I like the bass and the guitar before 3 minutes. "Epilogue" is a catchy tune. It's okay. "One By One" is heavier and I like the instrumental interlude before 3 1/2 minutes. "Clown In The Mirror" opens with piano as reserved vocals join in. It gets fuller in the power ballad type track. "Day In Day Out" is uptempo but it settles when the vocals arrive. The tempo continues to shift though. "Legion Of The Damned" is another power ballad-like tune.

So while the material here would have made for a great album if it was all original, it's not. This is a compilation of previously released tracks that have either been re-done in the studio or live.

Dubbed "the longest EP in history" (at nearly 70 minutes of length), The Watchers is an EP released by Danish melodic prog metallers Royal Hunt to accompany the release of their 6th full-length album The Mission. The EP contains one new track that was not included on The Mission but is part of the same concept (a musical soundtrack for the book "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury about the colonization of Mars by Americans who flee the troubled, war-ridden Planet Earth). The EP also contains four live tracks and four re-recordings of songs taken from the band's earlier albums. Seven of these eight songs are particularly interesting because they feature for the first time new singer John West who had joined the band only two years prior, following the departure of the band's previous, much beloved singer DC Cooper.

The previously unreleased track, "Intervention", appears on the EP in two versions (a full version and a radio-edit version). The full version is a great, 14-minute epic, proggy track that in my opinion is almost better than any of the songs that were actually included on The Mission album. The track moves through different, recurring parts, some of which instrumental while others feature the great John West at the mic. His singing here, as on The Mission, is impeccable: warm, soulful but powerful and epic when needed. The song features a very nice chorus that reminds me of the Paradox album, partly because of its lyrics describing an imaginary dialogue with God. The whole song is actually more in the spirit of the music the band released on Moving Target/Paradox (symphonic, mid-tempo, classically-inspired prog rock/metal) than the more metallic and fast-tempo songs included on The Mission. This perhaps explains why "Intervention" was left out of the full-length release since, sonically, it does not match the rest of the tracks of that album very well. The song also sounds better produced than the material released on The Mission, whose sound I found a bit too compressed, thin and plasticky. The drum sound in particular is much improved as it feels less artificial and processed than the sound on The Mission album (drummer Allan Sørensen is credited a playing on the EP, while he did not appear on the full-length album). Overall, this is an awesome track that alone is worth the price of the EP.

The other tracks are live or re-recorded versions of songs from earlier albums, mostly Paradox, Clown in the Mirror and Land of Broken Hearts. The most interesting aspect of these tracks, as I mentioned earlier, is that these are among the first recordings of these songs with John West behind the mic. West is an amazing singer, there's no doubt about it. However, his voice is quite special - warm, bluesy, and soulful - and it truly shines when the music gives him space to breathe and he can explore the space between the notes. Some of these earlier songs have been written for a different type of vocalist, like DC Cooper, whose performance is much tighter and more sober. The same goes for the earlier songs written for the band's original singer Henrik Brockmann who sang on Royal Hunt's first two albums. This is to say that, although it is interesting to listen to John West performing tracks taken from the band's first four albums, the outcome is not as amazing as one would have perhaps expected. Especially on the live versions of "Flight" (from Land of Broken Hearts) and "Message to God" (from Paradox), West sounds a bit uncomfortable and out of place. He lacks the grit that Brockmann put in his performance and the tightness of DC Cooper. He does better on "Epilogue" (from Clown in the Mirror) that is indeed a more spacious song that is more apt to West's expressive, modulated vocals. The same applies to the studio re-recordings, where West appears more in his element on soulful tracks like "Clown in the Mirror" than "One by One" (from Land of Broken Hearts).

Despite this, The Watchers remains a nearly-essential release if you are a Royal Hunt fan. The unreleased track left off The Mission is worth alone the purchase of the EP, being a song that is probably superior to all the material released on that full-length album. The live and re-recorded tracks are interesting because of the presence of the new singer John West and more generally because they contain some of the most beautiful tracks the band has ever written ("Message to God", "Epilogue", "Clown in the Mirror", "Legion of the Damned").

[Originally posted on www.metal-archives.com]