HammerFall - Glory to the Brave (1997)^{Release ID: 7844}

I had heard this once before, and at the time I had given this CLOSE to five stars.  Now I'm not so sure, and I'm glad I have the motivation to get back to this and see for certain  Right at the start, Hammerfall make a point of being loud, energetic and heavy... and I had to wonder if that was unintentional compensation for lack of trying to write great songs.  "The Dragon Lies Bleeding" got every ingredient an essential power metal song needs, and nothing else, which means it's got every ingredient a GENERIC power metal song needs.  The whole album has good melodies and solos, and the singer himself has a high enough voice to keep up with the excess energy of the band.  Effectively, they've got the same riot factor that made the first few Ramones albums so good, so this album is a hard one not to jam out to.  But it seems to me that throughout the entirety of the album, the band is RELYING on that jam factor.  At least they have the decency to occasionally switch to a power ballad like "I Believe," which proves that the band has a strong idea of how to properly put power metal energy into a slow ballad.  That's something a lot of power metal bands can't do at all.  Unfortunately, the otherwise simplicity of the song recalls glam metal ballads, so that's a bit of a stinger in the album's overall quality.

The long and short of it that Hammerfall are not a brilliant band by any means.  They are, however, good enough to attract the audience they deserve, and I'd recommend Glory to the Brave to any power metal fan to check out at least once.  Chances are someone's gonna love it for its energy.  These guys are very true to the power metal genre, even enough to occasionally make up for their average songwriting skills.