{"id":19742,"date":"2012-04-19T06:55:09","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T11:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=19742"},"modified":"2013-01-29T10:13:07","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T15:13:07","slug":"royal-hunt-heart-of-the-city-best-of-1992-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2012\/royal-hunt-heart-of-the-city-best-of-1992-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Hunt | Heart of the City (Best of 1992-1999)<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\nStaff Writer —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"Danish melodic\/progressive metal band Royal Hunt celebrates their 20th anniversary this year, and what better way to do that than with an extensive, multi-disc \u201cbest of\u201d collection that captures the highlights of the band\u2019s career and best albums? Unfortunately, Heart of the City (Best of 1992-1999)<\/em> does nothing of the sort. The idea of a compilation covering Royal Hunt\u2019s \u201890s output is a good one. There hasn\u2019t been anything like that since 1998\u2019s Best<\/em>, and that was only available in Japan. The problem with Heart of the City<\/em> is that it\u2019s limited to a single disc and just ten songs, and those songs appear to have been chosen by someone utterly unfamiliar with the band\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

With this collection, you get a pair of songs from each of Royal Hunt\u2019s first five albums, which means that despite being far more successful and superior in just about every way, the DC Cooper-fronted albums Moving Target<\/em> and Paradox<\/em> get the same amount of songs as the largely unknown early albums Land of Broken Hearts<\/em> and Clown in the Mirror<\/em>, and even then they gloss over some key songs. No \u201cLast Goodbye\u201d or \u201c1348?\u201d No \u201cRiver of Pain\u201d or \u201cMessage to God?\u201d That\u2019s an instant fail right there.<\/p>\n

A real best of Royal Hunt\u2019s \u201890s era should ideally have two discs, but failing that the non-DC Cooper albums should have one song each\u2026tops. Throw on \u201cLand of Broken Hearts,\u201d \u201cClown in the Mirror\u201d and \u201cFear\u201d and you\u2019re done. After that you want 3-4 songs each from Moving Target and Paradox, plus a song or two from the live albums 1996<\/em> and Paradox \u2013 Closing the Chapter<\/em>. Royal Hunt\u2019s career in the \u201890s was defined by DC Cooper\u2019s vocals as much as anything else, and a good \u201cbest of\u201d set would acknowledge that. <\/p>\n

Heart of the City<\/em> just doesn\u2019t get the job done. It\u2019s barely acceptable as an introduction for fans unfamiliar with the band, and even then newcomers are better off with a collection like Double Live in Japan<\/em>. And without any b-sides or noticeable remastering, there\u2019s definitely nothing here for serious Royal Hunt fans to bother with.<\/p>\n

Genre: Melodic Rock, Melodic Metal, Progressive Metal<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tRunning Wild
\n2.\tKingdom Dark
\n3.\tOn the Run
\n4.\tClown in the Mirror
\n5.\tMaking a Mess
\n6.\tTime
\n7.\tTearing Down the World
\n8.\tSilent Scream
\n9.\tFear
\n10.\tSea of Time<\/p>\n

Label: Scarlet<\/p>\n

Website: www.royalhunt.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 5\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines Staff Writer — Danish melodic\/progressive metal band Royal Hunt celebrates their 20th anniversary this year, and what better way to do that than with an extensive, multi-disc \u201cbest of\u201d collection that captures […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6772],"tags":[3439,2901,1098,3064],"class_list":{"0":"post-19742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-arcrvws2012","7":"tag-melodic-metal","8":"tag-melodic-rock","9":"tag-progressive-metal","10":"tag-royal-hunt"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}