### Drakkar: When lightning strikes

#### 13/06/12 || Sokaris

I went into this knowing nothing but the band name and seeing an album cover so I was without any preconceptions to how this album would strike me (get it!?). A name like Drakkar suggested to me metals of either the black or power variety- unless this band was spearheading the emergence of “black power metal” and the monumental wave of awkwardness that would inevitable follow. Well, looking at the cover we see a twinkly golden logo and some really colorful artwork. It stops short of rainbow holocaust, but still, I had an idea what kind of sounds the CD would contain.

Honestly, first listen I wasn’t too into this but after a couple more spins it grew on me a bit. The vocals could use a little more work, the guy’s got charisma, which is a harder thing to develop, I just think a little more range and some more upper register wails would go a long way. There’s amazing riffs occasionally, catchy choruses and nice developments. Keyboards are used but generally stray away from being too cheesy. The interludes really should’ve been cut minus the first intro. Seriously, there’s two intro tracks to start things off.I’m not the guy to dissect their influences because I only listen to a handful of power metal acts but I imagine this at least warrants some attention from the sword-wielding fantasy-loving metal legions the world over.

The crackers in Drakkar get a 6 out of 10.