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Album Reviews : Lord – Live at Progpower USA

By on February 5, 2018

Live albums have long been out of favour with the music industry and audiences, so when one comes along that sounds alive, fresh and powerful and captures a great live band in their element, as well as a recording, possibly could, it’s time to stand up and take notice.

And that’s what we have here. Australia has always been a hotbed of great power metal, and Wollongong’s Lord has been at the forefront of Aussie power metal for a decade and a half. Even longer if you count main man’s Lord Tim’s previous incarnation of the band, Dungeon.

This type of music is always experienced best in a live setting, so a live album, despite their less than sexy status in the industry, is always a key step for a band such as this. And Live at Progpower absolutely nails it. It walks that fine balance between being well-produced enough to be highly listenable but still raw enough to be believable as a fair-dinkum live recording, not a studio incarnation with an applause track dubbed in after every song.

The tracklisting as very satisfying, for fans, but also doesn’t drag on for people who may be less familiar with their material. 11 well-produced, powerful tracks, including a pounding, resounding, hell for leather cover of Metallica’s Creeping Death to close out the album, and an hour’s worth of music makes this a highly satisfying package.

The lead guitar playing and the enjoyably eye-watering vocals of LT himself are real highlights.

This is a scintillating snapshot of a great live band at the peak of their powers (pun intended).

Band: Lord
Album: Live at Progpower USA
Year: 2018
Genre: Power Metal
Label: Dominus Records
Origin: Australia

About

Rod Whitfield is a Melbourne-based writer and retired musician who has been writing about music since 1995. He has worked for Team Rock, Beat Magazine, themusic.com.au, Heavy Mag, Mixdown, The Metal Forge, Metal Obsession and many others. He has written and published his memoirs of his life and times in the music biz, and also writes books, screenplays, short stories, blogs and more.