{"id":71444,"date":"2018-08-03T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T00:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=71444"},"modified":"2018-08-07T15:55:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T15:55:25","slug":"album-review-mongrels-cross-psalter-of-the-royal-dragon-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-mongrels-cross-psalter-of-the-royal-dragon-court\/","title":{"rendered":"MONGREL\u2019S CROSS – Psalter Of The Royal Dragon Court (2018) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONGREL\u2019S CROSS
Psalter Of The Royal Dragon Court<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nHells Headbangers (2018)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Strange band name, eh? Mongrel\u2019s Cross are a group from Brisbane, Australia that formed in 2009. In spite of Psalter Of The Royal Dragon Court<\/em> being Mongrel\u2019s Cross\u2019 second full-length release, the outfit have been described as \u201cone of the best-kept secrets down under\u201d. Hopefully, this review will get people\u2019s heads turning and ears burning.<\/p>\n

Opening track \u2018King Of The Beasts\u2019 marches in with a Bathory-styled plod circa Blood Fire Death<\/em> (1988), but then soon becomes an edgy, rattling design built upon a bony percussive thread before a rush of blackened melody takes over.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not overly familiar with the previous output of Mongrel\u2019s Cross, but would certainly recommend Psalter Of The Royal Dragon Court<\/em> based on this track alone; the outfit provide brisk, melodic strains hinting at black and death metal fusion, all led by a barking vocal style. What I really like about Mongrel\u2019s Cross is the variety contained within each track, most of which run for well over five minutes. With that opener, we get stark, thorny trudges threaded with crisp leads and a nifty bass slog.<\/p>\n

\u2018Neurian Transformation\u2019 is a blazing face-ripper of a track that uses a lot of haste before the vocal intrusion brings the tempo down a level as Grand Mongrel foetidly slurps his vocals like a charming blood-thirsty Count eyeing up a victim. It\u2019s those frenetic blasts of cold, cutting speed which are the most effective however, as \u2018The Thirteenth Card\u2019 jars with its frenzied assault; akin to being slashed by a thousand razors, it cavorts with precision like a flailing scalpel-wielding maniac, built upon a feverish rhythm before that slower tempo comes rolling in like flowing silt.<\/p>\n

It is certainly evil-sounding stuff without ever appearing as stuffy or lo-fi, the band carving monumental passages of almost angular nuances as the hilariously titled (intentional?) \u2018From Transylvania To Tunbridge Wells\u2019 \u2013 with its Gothic flecks of jerking melody \u2013 all feels rather black and shiny. Again, we follow what has now become a slightly predictable path of mid-tempo wickedness, but it\u2019s nevertheless still rather flavoursome as laps of traditional metal darkness circa Mercyful Fate are taken up.<\/p>\n

Another favourite of the bunch is \u2018Trail Of The Serpent\u2019; one of the nastier hurries guitar \/ percussion wise, the track is threaded with a lethal lead that spirals nicely into a militant march of the nefarious. I also enjoyed the juddering meticulousness of \u2018Vessel Of Shar On\u2019, an 11-minute wonder combing an abrasive flurry with those now expected trudges.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, while Mongrel\u2019s Cross is adept at building those scurrying chords of barbaric intensity, at times so many of the songs become easily readable in their flair. In that sense, a majority of the tracks would have benefited from being shorter bursts, but this is still an enjoyable and accessible opus which is vibrant with malicious musical marches into war and slick, snaking chord changes and slithering percussion. I\u2019m rather surprised in fact that I liked such a glinting, gleaming opus, but I think you will too.<\/p>\n

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

MONGREL\u2019S CROSSPsalter Of The Royal Dragon Court Hells Headbangers (2018)Rating: 7.5\/10 Strange band name, eh? Mongrel\u2019s Cross are a group from Brisbane, Australia that formed in 2009. In spite of Psalter Of The Royal Dragon Court being Mongrel\u2019s Cross\u2019 second full-length release, the outfit have been described as \u201cone of the best-kept secrets down under\u201d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4091],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-mongrels-cross"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71444","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=71444"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71448,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71444\/revisions\/71448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}