Bloodbound was founded in summer 2004 by Tomas Olsson and Fredrik Bergh. Soon they recorded a demo and the debut Nosferatu was released in 2006. In 2010 the band parted ways with Urban Breed and Patrik Johansson took over the vocal duties. With Patrik, four studio albums were released. The latest being the good 2017's War of Dragons. Nothing hides the fact that with Bloodbound we are into "no-remorse" Swedish power metal. There will be dragons (lots of them), swords, kings and epic battles all over the place. Bloodbound's music is somewhere between Hammerfall and Rhapsody. The songs are rather simplistic in structure and technically. Mr Johansson vocal approach is similar to his country mate from Hammerfall. It's clean, melodic with occasional high pitched screams but never over-the-top.
Musically, Rise Of The Dragon Empire features mid-tempo, melodic songs with hymnic character and it's not a departure from the previous records. But it does shows more medieval folk influences. It's a straightforward power metal album with 11 tracks, no intros, interludes or ballads. That makes it very easy to go through its consistently good 46 minutes. While Bloodbound uses keyboards played by Fredrik Bergh, it is mostly to support the melodies and just sometimes in the foreground to give Rhapsody-like symphonic flavor. With that said, Rise Of The Dragon Empire is much more influenced by the Italians and early Edguy than previous records. That's not to say that Bloodbound is not original, quite the opposite, Rise Of The Dragon Empire shows a band finding their own sound and identity. The album cover solidifies their transition from a demon based imagery to dragons which makes sense given their music.
The album starts well with the good title track which was released as a video single. No surprises here, usual song structure, melodic verses and big catchy chorus. It has the epic medieval vibe which is expected given the lyrics e.g. "Kings and queens to be so magical to me". Track two and the first single "Slayer Of Kings" is a high tempo song with also medieval folk inspired riffs. It inserts a high energy into the album flow. "Skyriders And Stormbringers" displays a very moving and epic melody. "Magical Eye" follows and concludes the strong start. There are other highlights for example the Sabaton influenced "A Blessing In Sorcery" which is one of the most energetic and catchy songs int eh album. The third single "The Warlock's Trail" brings that Hammerfall influence from the early days and sounds great. "Reign Of Fire" closes the album with a different note, a sing along slow tempo anthem. The other few songs while OK don't really impress and fall flat without asking to be played again. It hurts to say but the Game of Thrones inspired lyrics also bother me. The show, while one of my favorites, is too mainstream and cliche to sound cool in metal. But I'm being picky here, I know.
Rise Of The Dragon Empire is mostly more of the same which makes a few songs ineffective to call my attention. On the bright side Rise Of The Dragon Empire solidifies Bloodbound sound and image, it's a competent album and adds some very good tracks to their live setlist. I enjoy this band and their work and I hope they continue to grow and hopefully take a bit more risks next time. For fans of the band and power metal in general, Rise Of The Dragon Empire is a good investment. And if you can't wait for the new Game of Thrones season, get your dragon dose fixed with Bloodbound.
SCORE: 77/100
DR: 6
Genre: Power Metal
Released by AFM Records on March 22nd, 2019
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