Guitar Music 9 - "Anthem" Review Featured In Heavy Metal Resource

Byrd

Review of "Anthem"

ormer Fifth Angel founder and guitarist James Byrd continues his amazing career with another album. The new album titled 'Anthem' is now released via Lion Music and is a progression of his direction on 'Flying beyond the 9'. The difference that I picked up on this release is that the album comes across as more of a production. The songs are big. The band is classified as a symphonic metal act and lives up to the name very well. Now it needs to be said that James Byrd is not making Rhapsody style music even though some find those comparisons. The bands are definitely different in their approach. The new album is also filled with a lot of emotion. When Byrd started to write his new album it was a pre 9/11 era. After the tragic events he totally shifted gears and offered a different presentation. Maybe this affected the emotional aspect of this release. Actually, I'd bet on it. The release is tight with good musicianship, writing, and vocals. Most of the tracks are actual very visual in their presentation. Take 'Anthem -Dealt by Darkness' as an example. It's a great opener that displays the aforementioned emotion as well as big production sound. This is consistent throughout the rest of the album. Some of my own favorites include the opener already mentioned, 'Omen', the melodic 'Some Day', 'All I want', the atmospheric 'The price of war', and the upbeat album closer 'Only Love'. It's hard to pick favorites however because the entire album is consistent and well written.

Overall James Byrd is really writing some prestigious sounding music. This album is similar than 'Flying beyond the 9' but is different at the same time. The songs are well crafted with a bit of classical thrown into big production. An emotionally driven album that makes a statement where James is as an artist. He has his own identity and this album really solidifies this notion. This one is definitely worthy of your attention!