Prepare For Glory!!! Spartan is a Dutch melodic death metal band from Haarlem in the north of the Netherlands. These 5 guys started as a small project with one type of genre. After a while, they started to combine several other genres and from those decisions the Spartan as we know it was born.

 

Well, onwards to the first song ofthe album For Glory. Charon doesn’t lie about it and barrages you with a heavy‘intro’ of the song. The vocals done by Jeff are raw and fitsperfect in the song.

Then kicks the more headbang-able(The Story of) Talos. The riffs of guitar players Nick and Pieter line up perfect.The song goes on pretty solid and then a beautiful solo kicks in. After only two songs you can hear that Spartan has put a lot of effort in making this album.

 

Solar Signs is in my opinion a song that combines Killswitch Engage with Children of the Bodom. That can’t go wrong right? It certainly doesn’t and fits perfectly on this record. Again the tight riff-machines Nick and Pieter produce a mighty powerful sound.

Then the song Hot Gates pops up. This song is more groovy/hard rock then all the other songs. Nevertheless in the end it reminds me that Spartan also can make a good hard rock song. For me this song doesn’t fit on the album but Spartan is all about mixing several genres, so maybe I could’ve expected this to happen.

The next song Behemoth is a song where Spartan combines power metal with thrash metal. This song would attract even black metalheads, not because its satan and all that crap, but it has a modern black metal (Dimmu Borgir-ish) feeling in the voice of Jeffrey.

I’ve seen Spartan twice doing a live gig and I was looking forward to this song: Athena’s Wrath and the interlude called For Glory.

Jesus Christ this is a way to end an album. Before hell breaks loose, there is a beautiful intro to Athena’s Wrath. Filled with a acoustic guitar and a electric guitar in the background. It seems like Jeffrey is giving order to his Phalanx before they go to war in the interlude, which is badass.

Then hell breaks loose with a brutal riffs by Nick and Pieter. These riffs have a high ‘holy shit’ level and live it even sounds more brutal then on the record.

 

I cannot wait for the next album and the demo (that they put on their Facebook) are amazing. I give this album a fat 9 out of 10!