Album Review :
Golden Resurrection - Man With A Mission

Artist:  Golden Resurrection
Title:  Man With A Mission
Label:  Liljegren Records/Rival Records
Release Date:  12/9/2011
Reviewer:  Jeremiah Holdsworth

Tracklisting:

1.  The Light Overture
2.  Man With A Mission
3.  Identity In Christ
4.  Golden Times
5.  Finally Free
6.  Generation Of The Brave
7.  Standing On The Rock
8.  Metal Opus 1 In C# Minor
9.  Flaming Youth
10.  Are You Ready For The Power

Golden Resurrection burst onto the scene at the end of 2010 and released my favorite album for the entire year.  I’d give it a perfect score.  Everything flowed perfectly between the guitars, bass, drums, and keys.  It had an 80’s vibe at times, woven throughout amazing melodic neo-classical metal. 

One may ask, What is neo-classical metal?  Guitar playing, metal style, to where it has a classical sound, pretty much sums up the genre.  It’s not a common genre of metal because of the shear technicality that it takes to play it.  Very few have it mastered in general, and christian’s that can pull it off is slim to none.  One of the most famous neo-classical guitarists that is a christian is Carl Johan Grimmark of Narnia fame.  Tommy ReinXeed is at the top of that list as well and he’s bought his skills to Golden Resurrection.

Vocalist Christian Liljegren leans his talents and can hit octaves that few can register.  He’s most famous for his role in Narnia but has since left the band.  He supposedly wanted to take some time off, but he hasn’t seemed to stop. In the last 2 years he’s released 4 albums.  (One with Audiovision, one with Divinefire, and two with Golden Resurrection).

Now I was really excited to hear the new tunes ReinXeed, Liljegren, and company had put together.  After I finished the last song I was puzzled because the music didn’t really capture my attention at all.  I figured it had to grow on me, so I listened to it over and over and over again.  Everytime I finished the album, I was more and more irritated.  I went back and listened to their debut “Glory To My King” and I thought, “Wow this is amazing!  What the heck happened on their sophomore album?”  Overall I was bored to death.  I felt like I wasted the little time I have listening to this album that did nothing for me.  Gone was everything that made an amazing debut album, ‘epic melodies, crazed guitar solos, indulging drumming.’  Don’t get me wrong because their is still amazing musicianship on this album.  The thing is, none of it kept my attention so amazing musicianship accomplishes nothing if this is the case.  What also turned me off was the cheesy lyrics throughout the album.  A lot of people know I love solid christian based lyrics, but these tend to come off worse then your hail Jesus’s on every other contemporary christian praise album.  The lyrics weren’t nearly as cheese-balled on “Glory To My King”.

Overall:  I’ve read a lot of positive reviews for this album.  I honestly can’t find one negative so I guess I’m the loner.  For myself, these guys released the best album in 2010, and the worst album in 2011.  I will say that the only 2 songs I really enjoyed, were bonus cover songs, that you can only get off amazon.com.  “Point Of No Return” which has a sweet 80’s sound, and “The End Of The World” which is an epic beast of a metal song.  Maybe this band should stick to covers?