{"id":29946,"date":"2013-06-05T06:39:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T11:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=29946"},"modified":"2014-02-08T08:36:19","modified_gmt":"2014-02-08T13:36:19","slug":"artizan-ancestral-energy-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2013\/artizan-ancestral-energy-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Artizan | Ancestral Energy<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist\/News Editor —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Artizan\"Ancestral Energy is the second full-length album from Artizan, one of the more exciting bands to emerge from the American power metal scene in recent years. The Florida-based band once again enlisted the services of Jim Morris at the legendary Morrisound Studios to produce and engineer the album, which also features a guest appearance from former Iced Earth (and current Ashes of Ares) singer Matt Barlow.<\/p>\n

Much like Artizan\u2019s debut (2011\u2019s Curse of the Artizan<\/em>), Ancestral Energy<\/em> has the perfect mix of traditional, power and at times progressive heavy metal. It\u2019s hard hitting, and with plenty of power, but also has some infectious melodies and a fair amount of technicality. Maiden, Priest and Dio are the obvious touchstones, but you can hear traces of Queensryche, and older Savatage in Artizan\u2019s sound.<\/p>\n

At just 40 minutes, Ancestral Energy<\/em> is fairly brief, but the tradeoff is that it\u2019s also an album without any filler. It opens on a very strong note with the up-tempo, anthemic \u201cI Am the Storm,\u201d which is a great showcase for both the melodic lead guitar work as well as Tom Braden\u2019s unique vocals. \u201cThe Raven Queen\u201d and \u201cYou Can\u2019t Take the Metal\u201d are metal thrashing mad, and \u201cDeep Ocean Dreams\u201d is probably a better song than either Queensryche camp is going to come up with this year. Artizan saved the best for last though, closing the album with the epic 10-minute closing track. \u201cAncestral Energy\u201d has a slow, steady build to a frantic conclusion that finds Braden trading screams with Matt Barlow in a song reminiscent of those classic Iced Earth epics. <\/p>\n

Artizan demonstrated a lot of promise as a new band with Curse of the Artizan, and they\u2019ve delivered on that promise again with Ancestral Energy<\/em>. This is a very strong album that will appeal to a wide array of metal fans. Whether you\u2019re into classic bands like Iron Maiden and Queensryche, newer traditional metal bands like Widow and White Wizzard, or power metal bands like Iced Earth and Firewind, Ancestral Energy is an album that\u2019s going to satisfy.<\/p>\n

Genre: Power Metal, Progressive Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nJon Jennings (b)
\nShamus McConney (g)
\nTom Braden (v)
\nTy Tammeus (d)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tI Am the Storm
\n2.\tThe Raven Queen
\n3.\tThe Guardian
\n4.\tThe Death of Me
\n5.\tDeep Ocean Dreams
\n6.\tYou Can\u2019t Take the Metal
\n7.\tAncestral Energy<\/p>\n

Label: Pure Steel<\/p>\n

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

Hardrock Haven rating: 8.75\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Senior Columnist\/News Editor — Ancestral Energy is the second full-length album from Artizan, one of the more exciting bands to emerge from the American power metal scene in recent years. The […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8704],"tags":[336,1097,1098,2791,334],"class_list":{"0":"post-29946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2013","8":"tag-cd","9":"tag-power-metal","10":"tag-progressive-metal","11":"tag-pure-steel","12":"tag-review"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29946","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=29946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}