{"id":103080,"date":"2024-04-24T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T23:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=103080"},"modified":"2024-05-01T11:51:21","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T10:51:21","slug":"album-review-bronze-in-chains-and-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-bronze-in-chains-and-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"BRONZE – In Chains And Shadows (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRONZE
In Chains And Shadows<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Don your armour and grab your sword because this Spanish \/ Swedish combo are ready to rumble. In Chains And Shadows<\/em> is the debut full-length album from Bronze who began life in 2010 as Kramp but decided on the name change in August 2023. As Kramp they were quite active, releasing a trio of demos, an EP (Wield Revenge<\/em>), a brace of singles and a full-length entitled Gods Of Death<\/em> in 2020. When the band split, vocalist Mina Walkure, guitarist Cederick Forsberg and bassist Lap (brother of Mina) continued as Bronze accompanied by drummer Billy Qvarnstr\u00f6m.<\/p>\n

This is very much sword and sorcery hokum fused with a The Lord Weird Slough Feg and Brocas Helm vibe. The bass rattles like a bag of bones, drums clatter akin to horse\u2019s hooves and the riffs gallop like a horde of black riders atop flaming stallions. It\u2019s rather light and airy in its striding and, dare I say it, slightly off kilter which adds to its nostalgic charm, particularly with Walkure\u2019s vocal style.<\/p>\n

Opener \u2018Fool\u2019 is your standard loping ramble you\u2019d find hidden somewhere in the depths of 1984; a thinly produced Swedish heap that\u2019s both melodic yet gloomy even with its vim. \u2018Time Covers No Lies\u2019 drifts into speedier territory with its sprightly axe work and there are hints of Running Wild too. In fact, the influence of the German pirate metallers is apparent throughout, although \u2018Tale Of Revenge\u2019 has a hint of Grave Digger.<\/p>\n

In Chains And Shadows<\/em> is somewhat fleeting at just over 30 minutes and at times the production sounds thin, to the extent that there\u2019s no real weight throughout the entire opus. There is an air of predictability as the album unravels; \u2018Jackals Of The Sea\u2019, \u2018Tyrant\u2019s Spell\u2019 and \u2018Maze Of Haze\u2019 are a tad formulaic and lacking any sort of bite. However, there are a couple of gems I return to amidst the generic steel and they are the speed metal spring of \u2018Realm Of The Damned\u2019 and the slower, more engrossing \u2018Samurai\u2019.<\/p>\n

Not quite the dungeons and dragons spectacle I was expecting, In Chains And Shadows<\/em> is indeed very much bronze metal rather than gold.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRONZEIn Chains And Shadows Self-released (2024)Rating: 6.5\/10 Don your armour and grab your sword because this Spanish \/ Swedish combo are ready to rumble. In Chains And Shadows is the debut full-length album from Bronze who began life in 2010 as Kramp but decided on the name change in August 2023. As Kramp they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5670,5671],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-bronze","category-kramp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103081,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103080\/revisions\/103081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}