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BRONZE
In Chains And Shadows

Self-released (2024)
Rating: 6.5/10

Don your armour and grab your sword because this Spanish / Swedish combo are ready to rumble. In Chains And Shadows is the debut full-length album from Bronze who began life in 2010 as Kramp but decided on the name change in August 2023. As Kramp they were quite active, releasing a trio of demos, an EP (Wield Revenge), a brace of singles and a full-length entitled Gods Of Death in 2020. When the band split, vocalist Mina Walkure, guitarist Cederick Forsberg and bassist Lap (brother of Mina) continued as Bronze accompanied by drummer Billy Qvarnström.

This is very much sword and sorcery hokum fused with a The Lord Weird Slough Feg and Brocas Helm vibe. The bass rattles like a bag of bones, drums clatter akin to horse’s hooves and the riffs gallop like a horde of black riders atop flaming stallions. It’s rather light and airy in its striding and, dare I say it, slightly off kilter which adds to its nostalgic charm, particularly with Walkure’s vocal style.

Opener ‘Fool’ is your standard loping ramble you’d find hidden somewhere in the depths of 1984; a thinly produced Swedish heap that’s both melodic yet gloomy even with its vim. ‘Time Covers No Lies’ drifts into speedier territory with its sprightly axe work and there are hints of Running Wild too. In fact, the influence of the German pirate metallers is apparent throughout, although ‘Tale Of Revenge’ has a hint of Grave Digger.

In Chains And Shadows is somewhat fleeting at just over 30 minutes and at times the production sounds thin, to the extent that there’s no real weight throughout the entire opus. There is an air of predictability as the album unravels; ‘Jackals Of The Sea’, ‘Tyrant’s Spell’ and ‘Maze Of Haze’ are a tad formulaic and lacking any sort of bite. However, there are a couple of gems I return to amidst the generic steel and they are the speed metal spring of ‘Realm Of The Damned’ and the slower, more engrossing ‘Samurai’.

Not quite the dungeons and dragons spectacle I was expecting, In Chains And Shadows is indeed very much bronze metal rather than gold.

Neil Arnold

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