http://www.globaldomination.se/reviews/stormrider-lucifer-rising schrieb:I”™m always a little dubious when I volunteer to review one of the promo albums sent to the offices of Global Domination. It”™s well known that 90% of everything is crap, but it”™s difficult to truly appreciate that sentiment until you”™ve slogged through something like Audio Autopsy. Still, someone has to do it and it isn”™t always hell.

Enter Stormrider and their second album “Lucifer Rising”, a death/black metal album from Sweden (emphasis on the death). Stormrider basically covers all the Swedish death metal bases and injects some black metal energy to keep things lively. “Jesus Christ Dismemberized” features a nicely crushing riff (though I might be biased here, since ”˜dismemberized”™ is one of my favorite imaginary evil words). There”™s also some nice hooks here and there, such as the Iron Maiden inspired “Return of the Beast”. There is a nice head bobbing groove that gives this album a fairly nice feel from start to finish.

To name drop a little, Stormrider has much in common with mid-to-late period Behemoth, Hypocrisy and, as usual with this sort of thing, Dissection. The band”™s black metal leanings appear mostly in the form of blast beats and some rather nice snarly vocals. That”™s for the best since, generally speaking, Stormrider does death metal a lot better than black metal. “Psychic Vampire” is a slow tempo song based around one of the most generic black metal riffs in the world. Dimmu Borgir has used that riff about 50 times, making Stormrider”™s rendition redundant at best. Too bad this version of “Psychic Vampire” has nothing to do with new wave/punk band The Wipers. What a shame, it could have been cover magic.

One of the album”™s most impressive highlights is the guitar solos. They are simple, short and used mainly as a change of pace. On the other hand, I don”™t like the crummy hissed vocals. They only appear on one or two tracks and are barely audible, but sound like shit. YX, the band”™s vocalist, does well when he”™s snarling and growling. He should stick with that. I”™m also not sold on this album”™s production, because it doesn”™t seem to fit the music properly. The guitars have an over produced sheen to them and would benefit from a little more dirt and lot more bite.

Overall, I think Stormrider has something to offer and is a band that fans of death/black metal should keep one eye on. With a more acidic production, this might have stood proudly next to stuff like In Battle”™s “Kingdom of Fear”. Instead, “Lucifer Rising” is a good place to go for a quick fix, but will almost certainly be forgotten by this time next year.

6 out of 10.