Label: Death to Music
Release: 23-04-2010 

By Laetitia

Bigger than the black death, faster than the 14^th century, cheaper then the crusades. Jaldaboath’s own description about their debut album : The Rise of the Heraldic Beasts. For the people who don’t know Jaldaboath, it’s a band from the UK who make black/folk metal with medaieval themes and music influences from that period.

The album starts with the song ‘Hark the Herald’, which also can be found one the EP ‘Hark the Herald’, released in 2008. A catchy mid – tempo song with easy lyrics. Besides the normal metal instruments you can hear some medieval horns. If this band will ever play live, this would probably be their most popular song.The second song is new, it’s named Calling on all Heraldic Beasts’. It starts with a happy catchy tune and again the ‘medaievel horns’. It contains some nice melodies and at the end of the song you can hear slower piece where the singer says an enumaration of beasts. The song isn’t very diverse and it’s not the best song on the album. ‘Bash the Bishop’ is the third song on the album. It has a remarkable intro, funny lyrics and also the song sounds again happy. Also catchy, a song that will stay in your head until it’s bashed. ‘Seek the grail’, is also a song you can find on ‘Hark the Herald’, this song has a more ‘darker’ feel to in the beginning. Later on it’s all cheerfull, melodic and catchy again. The intro to ‘Axe Wielding Nuns’ is a church choir, then starts a horn starts playing which continues during the song. Also this song sounds a little more darker then the songs before this one. ‘Jaldaboath’ and ‘Bring me the head of Metatron’ and ‘Jaque de Molay’ come after ‘Axe Wielding Nuns’, ‘Bring me the head of Metatron’ and ‘Jaque de Molay’ are also songs from the EP ‘Hark the Herald’. ‘March to Calvary’ is an instrumental song with a typical medieval tune mixed with a choir. The last song from the album is ‘Da Vinci’s Code’, again a song that can be found on the EP ‘Hark the Herald’.

Jaldaboath used every song of their EP ‘Hark the Herald’ on their debut album. I think it’s a pity because I was curious about what new, funny music they would come up with. But the older songs still sound great and catchy, along with most of the new songs. Lovers of happy folk metal will surely adore this new album. A new genre is born, besides viking metal and pirate metal, there is know: Knight metal.

Rating: 7/10

Tracklist:

1.Hark The Herald 03:31
2.Calling On All Heraldic Beasts  04:35
3.Bash The Bishop  04:24
4.Seek The Grail  04:21
5.Axe Wielding Nuns 04:09
6.Jaldaboath  04:11
7.Bring Me The Head Of Metatron  04:31
8.Jacque De Molay  03:58
9.March To Cavalry  02:36
10.Da Vinci’s Code  04:07