Land of the Grim is the fourth releases by Galician metal band Skydancer and in case you wandering (I know you are) Galicia is an autonomous community in North West Spain and homeland to the main driving force of Skydancer, Dany Soengas, who uses the history of this region for his lyrical inspiration in both English and Galician.
Also despite having the appearance of a 'one man band' a credit were it's due to the other band members who all put in a stirling shift.
Musical inspiration on the other hand is pure Scandinavia by channelling the 'epic' melodic death metal styling of Amon Amarth, Insomnium and Mors Principum Est to striking affect so much so that fans of the genre will lap this up while the song-writing is strong enough to attract new fans on its own merit.
Opening track 'Swamp Tombs' is an interesting way to show intent as after starting softly and gradually building in atmosphere it never properly "unleashes the fury" in the way you'd expect or hope as it has short bursts of thrash metal riffing and death metal growls in between a lot more melodic moments.
Track two 'Ancares' and three 'Anecestral Lands' are were the melo death properly kicks into gear full of emotive guitar passages and rumbling death metal grooves , now I admit to not having picked up any obvious lyrics through the growled vocals but the guitar work throughout these two tracks is enough to convey emotion and dramatisation by itself.
Something strange happens after the brief interlude of 'L'even' as the production style suddenly shifts so much on 'The Ferryman' and 'O Peso do Tempo' that they sound like a completely different band as the guitars and vocals are sharper and more aggressive with less melodic guitar lines in a thrash metal vein.
The are both great songs but it's such an odd counter change to throw into the mix (as mentioned before I haven’t picked up on the lyrics due to having a digital copy so this could well be a really key element to the concept!) especially as final track proper 'The Galacian Exile' progresses/reverts back to the original sound of the opening tracks.
I say “proper” as there is the short atmospheric outro of 'Lembranza' to leave us with.
