All For The King: Darkest Before Dawn |

Before The Night Comes

(Roxx Records – 2024)

I had special interest in approaching the stuff of this band called All For The King, a band coming from Sweden that defines itself as Melodic Heavy Metal. I have been told a lot about them and in this case, comes their newest work called “Darkest Before Dawn”, third album of the band, which we will try to analyze.
The first thing that comes to my mind when listening to this album is that we are in front of powerful Christian hymns in the key of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock rather traditional, with certain touches of modernity in their sound that manage to detach this work from other similar ones that are going around. What stands out the most, of course, is the direct and clear Christian message in their lyrics. Not for that reason it is still a very good work that moves musically between Traditional Metal and Melodic Hard Rock, which in itself merits a deeper analysis. Of course, All For The King, is formed by 4 gentlemen who are around 50 years old, and of course, in their adolescence they must have enjoyed the best time in music, and that shows in their compositions and style of the band. The influence of the ’80s and beyond is also noticeable in every song. Anyway, there is an attempt not to stay stuck in time, and every now and then, some attempts to sound a little more modern are noticed. Each track on this album also has hooky choruses, the kind that make you raise your fist in the air, but let’s agree that none of them accelerate, but rather the style remains in a relaxed tempo. The double pedal and the beat will be for another occasion.

Leaving aside the lyrics, very direct by the way, All For The King manages to capture in 9 songs plus the instrumental that serves as intro, an album that does not surprise too much but, looking at it from another angle, it can be said that it leaves Metal well standing. Good riffs, strong and sustained bases, aggressive guitar solos, etc. Each track stays within a structure that doesn’t go a thousand miles, but rather keeps a tight tempo. The background orchestration is lightly overloaded as to give more air of epicness to each song, and it is very well done by the way. The guitars sound strong, up front, and the solos, while not the highlight, are good. The rest of the band sounds good, tight and the work of Ricard Hulteke on vocals is more than outstanding.
Leaving aside the intro that gives the title to the album, the real beginning is with “The Seventh Seal”, a rather “hard rock” song with a strident and powerful chorus. Here, Ulf Christiansson from the historical band Jerusalem participates as guest on vocals. In “Light In The Dark” there is a touch of Sabbath, which I particularly loved (by far…the best song of the album). The album continues with the melodic “Stay Awake”, a track that particularly reminds me of early Holy Soldier. The tempo of “Fearless” is almost like an old time anthem.
With “Blind Leading” we have a heavy, dense sound in a valiant attempt to assimilate to more modern sounds, in the same tenor as in “Mind Pollution”, last track that on the other hand closes the album decently. There we also have “You Are My King”, a rather eighties theme, in hard rock/pop key with a catchy chorus, possible cut of diffusion of this work. In “Welcome” they give us a strong theme, semi-locked and following the line of the whole album. “Surrender” is the classic pompous slow that could be the different of this work, a typical church hymn practically.
The production of the physical disc is correct. The cover complies with the concept of the album although with that forest in a dark tone, you could think of a Scandinavian Black Metal album, but on the contrary, we are facing another thing heh! The inner envelope has the technical data of this work, pictures of the band playing live and the lyrics, returning to the old custom of Christian bands of accompanying the lyrics with the biblical reference of each song. As for the sound, they have really done a great job in the recording and mixing as we can hear an excellent result. There is no overload of sounds that leaves everything in a ball of noises as it usually happens. Everything sounds clear, strong and you can appreciate each instrument sounding in its right measure. Quite an achievement.

Clearly All For The King, with its strong and direct Christian message, moves along the difficult path for a Metal band or even the easy one, if we see it from the point of view of Christian music. Opinions are obviously left to the subjectivity of each one. Musically this album is a good achievement of the band and we are glad to have an album that goes the way of traditional Metal, or rather Hard Rock, but always keeping in the faithful sound of the heavy stuff.
The good thing is that this album is not only available on CD but also on vinyl. To learn more, you can visit https://roxxrecords.com