Sacred Steel – Carnage Victory

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It’s now been over three years since Sacred Steel’s sixth album, Hammer of Destruction, and the new disc seems to continue where that one left off with the same style of Germany high-speed power metal they’ve become known for. Purely as a point of reference, Sacred Steel are like Dragonforce with variation, or a less-refined Gamma Ray. Stock galloping metal rhythms like Broken Rites bore quickly, and most songs, regardless of how differently they begin, descend into the same fast-paced drum patterns and repetitive riffs before long. All there is to break up the relative monotony is the Spanish-tinged acoustic instrumental Shadows of Reprisal, power ballad Ceremonial Magician of The Left Hand Path, chugging, clichéd anthem Metal Underground and parts of Denial of Judas (Heaven Betrayed). There’s nothing strictly wrong with the songs here, they’re just all the same, and bands like Dark Illusion, Mystic Prophecy and Winterborn are doing the same thing better at the moment, with a lot more invention and variation. This is however how Sacred Steel have always sounded, so fans should be happy enough.

Written by Andy Lye
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