Artist: Realmbuilder
Album: Summon The Stone Throwers
Type: Album
Label: I Hate Records

Chucking comparisons to Reverend Bizarre and Manilla Road into your press release is a sure way to get me over excited about your album before I’ve even heard it. Of course you’ve then got to be able to follow up such claims and deliver the goods. Well New York’s Realmbuilder, while not particularly sounding like those two illustrious bands or anyone else really, deliver in spades. I have to admit that for the first few minutes of listening to opening track ‘Bow Before The Oligarchy’ I was unconvinced. I started scrawling notes about simplistic music and limited vocals but before I’d even reached the wondrous second track, ‘Silver Ziggurat’, everything had clicked resoundingly into place. I was transported into Realmbuilder’s world – a world of myth and magic, heroism and battle. The song structures are clean and uncluttered, the production organic and authentic, the performances understated and perfectly in tune with the wonderful atmosphere. Summon The Stone Throwers is completely at odds with the morass of over-produced aggression that saturates the modern metal scene. Indeed, despite being resolutely metal to the core, there is something tremendously relaxing about songs like ‘Forgotten Minion’.

If I am forced to make comparisons I suppose I’ll give a nod to the dramatic, enthusiastic NWOBHM of Angel Witch’s debut, maybe the beauty and honest endeavour of Revelation and the stirring war cries of Doomsword - but the truth is Realmbuilder have so much individual character they stand bravely alone. Of course there are influences in evidence but those influences have been woven into something special and unique. Fans of untarnished heavy metal and traditional doom would do well to investigate this post haste. Utterly unpretentious, choosing simple nobility over grand majesty, Summon The Stone Throwers is an album I feel sure I will be listening to for many years to come.

http://www.myspace.com/realmbuilder