Andrew Danso

Comprised of everything Scandinavian, "Wearing A Martyr’s Crown" is made up of melodic guitars, belching vocals, double kicks, and its fair share of acoustic guitar passages. For the fan, the record may saturate for years to come, but for the neutral, Wearing A Martyr’s Crown sounds dangerously close to early Arch Enemy, Inflames and Children Of Bodom – actually it initially appears to be an arranged "Black Earth". In 1996, and still to this day many herald Black Earth as a Scandinavian masterpiece, and with partial reiterations in 2009 still happening, this point is further cemented. This also highlights the genres biggest problems. Much like London’s drum and bass scene, Scandinavian metal has never had the ability to progress from the late nineties, without becoming something entirely different. Herein lays Nightrage’s biggest problem. They sound specifically the same as their precursors.

However, there is credit were its due. As you would expect, song writing is solid with enough twists that’ll certainly retain attention spans. The performances are among some of the most mesmeric heard in years. Production values are kept suitably high, that help showcase their compositions clearly. It’s just such a pity that Wearing A Martyr’s Crown is just another addition to the obese genre, and almost a non-respective one at best. To add, you wouldn’t have been surprised to see Nightrage add the masterstroke to push the genre forward; which makes Wearing A Martyr’s Crown that more disappointing. Maybe we’ve been listening to cover bands for the past 13 years?

Archaic-Magazine