Imperial Vengeance - At the Going Down of the Sun (2009)

Imperial Vengeance took me by surprise when I first started listening to this album, I honestly did not expect much from it since the only thing I knew about the band was that Charles Hedger, a live member of Cradle Of Filth plays in it.

The band’s overall bombastic sound is what makes this release so interesting, since the 2nd track you are blown away by interesting orchestrations and deranged sounding vocals, a very original atmosphere that very few bands can pull off (like The Vision Bleak). I must say that this band is one of the weirdest and most original I’ve heard in quite a while, the band’s label for their sound is “Dark Aristocratic Metal" which sounds very accurate to me since they present a very rich Dark Metal sound.

But besides the amazing orchestration that Imperial Vengeance presents there is a very solid foundation of guitar work that holds everything together with great guitar solos that add more versatility to this release, the drumming is also very rich and tight adding even more to the bands already excellent sound.

The vocal work featured in “At The Going Down Of The Sun” is another great element that brings life to the interesting millitary concept of the album, not getting annoying since there is very good balance of harsh and melodic clean vocals. There is also a very interesting part narrated by Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier to fight in the trenches of WW I, in the track that has the same name of the album.

Imperial Vengeance have manage to create a ground breaking first release, combining elements of many different genres and doing it gracefully in perfect harmony. The overall feeling of the album is like no other and they show great promise for their future releases, let’s hope they do so.

Release: August 11, 2009

Country: England