Beorn
Time to Dare
Independent Release
2015
In a time and age when more and more of the well-established bands rely exclusively on their followers nostalgia pushing half-arsed albums that the highly corrupt, metal media that largely exchanges ads for interviews in the most brazen way, in order to make sure of itself preservation, it’s not bad to see the odd band coming from whatever place, in this case Russia, being able to actually demonstrate that there might still be room for some originality even in forms that you’d expect to be quite stagnant, because of the number of bands and albums etc…
Beorn are a Russian power metal quintet with quite not too subtle hints of symphonic ambitions in their compositions. The band was formed by brothers Andrey and Alexey Zvonaryov (guitars and bass) who after looking around and rehearsing with a number of potential musical comrades, picked up Pavel Salikov on additional guitars and Victor Kuznetsov on drums along with a guy named Gregory Kryukov, as a vocalist, who might have obviously some “Ruski” traces in his accent, but is quite good overall, once you get used to him.
They take the style of bands like Gamma Ray with traces and hints of early Stratovarius, but an overall & quite more brutal approach, so I’m thinking also Lost Horizon and Dragonforce at their hardest, but also Scanner (shaken not stirred) and come up with an edgy, symphonic, power metal that doesn’t sound either dated or predictable. Obviously there’s quite a bit these guys could do to get even better. A fuller production would not hurt and if their singer would try a bit harder to deliver his lines in a more refined way, as long as it doesn’t mess up his performances, it would definitely help. Especially when he does stack 2 vocal channels, there as some vowels that sound quite protruding, all rough and accented, somewhat spoiling the result that and the rather “dump” drums, could definitely be improved…
Song like “Riders of the Sky”, “Star Ocean” and the “Chest of Deadman”, lifted from 2012’s single of the same name, are among the better songs in a debut album by a band that definitely leaves a lot of promise.
Beorn are a Russian power metal quintet with quite not too subtle hints of symphonic ambitions in their compositions. The band was formed by brothers Andrey and Alexey Zvonaryov (guitars and bass) who after looking around and rehearsing with a number of potential musical comrades, picked up Pavel Salikov on additional guitars and Victor Kuznetsov on drums along with a guy named Gregory Kryukov, as a vocalist, who might have obviously some “Ruski” traces in his accent, but is quite good overall, once you get used to him.
They take the style of bands like Gamma Ray with traces and hints of early Stratovarius, but an overall & quite more brutal approach, so I’m thinking also Lost Horizon and Dragonforce at their hardest, but also Scanner (shaken not stirred) and come up with an edgy, symphonic, power metal that doesn’t sound either dated or predictable. Obviously there’s quite a bit these guys could do to get even better. A fuller production would not hurt and if their singer would try a bit harder to deliver his lines in a more refined way, as long as it doesn’t mess up his performances, it would definitely help. Especially when he does stack 2 vocal channels, there as some vowels that sound quite protruding, all rough and accented, somewhat spoiling the result that and the rather “dump” drums, could definitely be improved…
Song like “Riders of the Sky”, “Star Ocean” and the “Chest of Deadman”, lifted from 2012’s single of the same name, are among the better songs in a debut album by a band that definitely leaves a lot of promise.