TRACK LISTING

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1.  Seventh Crusade
2.  With A Stranger's Eye
3.  Child Of Rock 'N' Roll
4.  Pearl Harbor
5.  Lost Crucifix
6.  Babylon Rise
7.  Suicide Rime
8.  The Battle Of Jacob's Ford
9.  Operation Freedom
10.  The Day After Yesterday
11.  Jerusalem

Total playing time:  47:33

Release Date:  October 21, 2011
Label: Metalville Records

Astral Doors - Jerusalem

Reviewer: Chris

December 14, 2011

Astral Doors sends its sixth full-length release our way that leaps tall dilapidated stone walls over the dismalness that was Requiem of Time from last year. Jerusalem is a surprising power metal assault that does a fine job in making me take notice of this Swedish outfit that caused me to roll my weary eyes more than once last year with lyrics straight out of a sixth grade fantasy.

Jerusalem is, simply put, a necessary widening of the Astral Doors scope that takes the basic elements of traditional heavy metal and sprinkles a generous amount of power metal influence atop the creation to find a good balance of two genres. Vocalist Nils Patrik Johansson does a fine job at keeping alive the spirit of Ronnie James Dio, utilizing every single vocal device known to modern man to channel the man’s spirit and then some. Granted, there’s room for some of Johansson’s own spin on things to breathe on his own merit, but if you’re into the post-Sabbath Dio body of work or even Rainbow you’ll certainly dig this. Aside from this obvious familiarity, the band manages to capture the essence of heavy power metal with all of the veracity afforded them by a strong, albeit overcrowded medium.

The music on Jerusalem suffers from little derivatively, actually finding some familiar riffs and time changes useful in the mix-and-match of metal’s bulbous stomach. “Seventh Crusade” and “Suicide Rime” are two prime examples of how to take a basic guitar chord assembly and bend it just enough so as to create a new take on an old failsafe. Without pause or reserve, the fluidity of the music on Jerusalem manages to entertain me to a higher degree than I ever expected after barely recovering from some of the silliest lyrics I’ve ever heard on Requiem of Time. Adding some intelligent verses to the already potent music herein really helped Astral Doors rise above the murky depths of near-extinction and find a comfortable spot in relevance and casual adoring banter.

“The Battle of Jacob’s Ford” is one of those tracks that remind me a tad bit of Grave Digger in the epic sound and grandiose “marching-to-battle” feel. I really happen to like this track quite a bit simply due to its encapsulation of what the true spirit of traditional metal should be. From the slow, moving passages to the brazen bombastic bellowing that actually causes feelings of marching into some tree-laden woodland, this track is precisely what the album cover attempts to define. I really like this song and already have the chorus ingrained in my head, where I’m sure it will hibernate for months, popping up now and again when I least expect it.

For a religious-themed foray, this is really quite panoptic, leaving no stone unturned and no corner unaddressed. The often chaotic nature of the music is exactly what the subject matter calls for and Astral Doors really impresses me with its take on such a broad topic that can usually go either way in terms of interest. The longtime metalhead will engulf such interesting messages with all of the fervor necessary to tap into the deeper recesses, while the simpler fan or novice will find the music engaging and fascinating simply by being well-implemented. Either way you hear this record, you come away knowing you’ve just heard a fine record by a band that stumbled a bit along the way, but found solid footing in Jerusalem.