‘Against the Dragon’ by Great Helm
‘Against the Dragon’ by Great Helm
Behold a rare sight and sound! Great Helm is a blackened power, yes POWER, metal artist. Even beyond that, we have an excellent one! Power metal and black metal aren’t necessarily known to go together, despite enjoying similar aesthetics and subject matter at times. The often fun, triumphant, sing-songy nature of power metal can easily clash with the more bleak, cutting, furious nature of black metal. Great Helm mixes these two genres almost flawlessly in their debut album, Against the Dragon.
One of Frederick Blauer’s many solo projects, Great Helm pulls from Blauer’s incredible dungeon synth work through The Dragonfather and his exploration into Christian black metal with Hell’s Enemy. Against the Dragon mixes these previous projects in a testament of furious epic symphonic power. Great Helm also retains Blauer’s focus on his faith and Christianity to create what the project’s Bandcamp page calls “Paladin Metal.” I agree with this label. Again, another big outlier in the metal scene is Christian power metal (Other than the clear exception of Theocracy maintaining a rather mainstream appeal). Great Helm clearly isn’t afraid to take creative risks, and the sheer amount of risk-taking here certainly pays off.
“Against the Dragon” and “Kneel for Sacred Steel” ignite the album with impressive sweeps of twinking synth beneath thunderous guitar and drums. Great Helm features an overall focus on no-clean-singing, but the self-titled opener features an interesting use of spoken word to craft a mythical tale that frames the rest of the album, as well as operatic singing you’d expect from an old-school power metal group like Rhapsody or Helloween.
However, the second track and its follow-up of “Witchbane” show Great Helm’s ability to utilize elements of black metal, namely in its vocals and tone, while capturing the catchiness of a power metal song’s structure and epicness of its symphonic synthesizers. Each song’s lyrics only feed the power metal influence as Great Helm screams about using stainless steel to fight wyrms and warlocks in a dreary and desolate landscape.
These songs, along with another standout track, “Valiant Defender,” craft an impressive mix of sing-song choruses and fierce verses. There’s perhaps a page taken from the Viking metal scene for this album, as many of the tracks feel like a more blackened Amon Amarth or Ensiferum. However, with songs like “Join the Crusade” and “Secret Fire,” Great Helm isn’t afraid to be more dramatic and mingle operatic singing, strings, and feudal-inspired synth with guttural growls and blast beast, which is on full display with closer “Helm of Power.”
Against the Dragon also shines because it strives to mix the dreary darkness often present in black metal with the heroics of power metal. The songs certainly lean into a more empowering and encouraging tone, given their Christian messaging and themes, which often revolve around themes of faith, redemption, and spiritual warfare. But they also acknowledge the darkness and danger of the world, even if it’s all in fantastical terms of goblins and long, treacherous journeys. There’s grit behind Great Helm’s lyrics, just as there is behind its musicality.
Great Helm’s debut is a welcomed surprise, and the album provides an interesting sonic experience for those interested in both power metal and black metal, though it overall leans more heavily into the power metal territory. Blauer seems to be prolific with his releases, constantly putting out new materials for each of his projects, so I now wait to see what Great Helm might bring next. The project has set a high standard for itself, but I believe its next release will be just as epic, just as savage, and just as complex both sonically and thematically.
