www.omenbattlecry.com

Review of the album “Battle Cry” by Omen

Label: Metal Blade Records
Year Released: 1984
Length: 36:34
Tracks: 10
Genre: Heavy Metal

Track Listing:

1. Death Rider
2. The Axeman
3. Last Rites
4. Dragon’s Breath
5. Be My Wench
6. Battle Cry
7. Die By The Blade
8. Prince Of Darkness
9. Bring Out The Beast
10. In The Arena

“Battle Cry” was Omen’s debut album, released shortly after they formed in 1983. It was raw and heavy and still considered the band’s best album. It seemed to be a tendency of 80′s metal bands to release really good, heavy albums as their debuts, before toning things down in subsequent albums. This is pretty much Omen’s story as well, though somewhat less so as they never achieved mass popularity either.

This album is equal parts extremely typical for the genre and somehow better thanks to J.D. Kimball’s soaring vocals and some reasonably good instrumentation. The first couple songs, Death Rider and The Axeman quickly remind the listener of another famous band, Iron Maiden, and introduce a distinctly thrashy feel that doesn’t necessarily continue through the rest of the album.

One can get a pretty good idea of how the rest is going to go just by looking at the tracklist. Last Rite, Dragon’s Breath, Be My Wench, etc. Standard medieval metal titles and the songs represent with heavy, driving riffs and plenty of shredding solos. The solos are usually memorable enough to tell the songs apart and Kimbell occasionally has some memorable parts himself. However, for casual metal fans, this line of seven songs might be a bit boring, just by virtue of the relative sameness of all of them, though Battle Cry is worth mentioning for its catchy chorus. Finally, In The Arena closes out the album with a solid metal ballad.