Reinforcer – Prince Of The Tribes – Album Review

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The Germans love a bit of heavy metal bombast don’t they. The latest band of power metal lovin’ marauders pedalling their broad-sword wielding wares are North Rhine-Westphalia’s Reinforcer and their brand of classic metal is as honest as they come…..if heavily predictable because of it.

Opening with the relatively mid-tempo “Prince Of The Tribes” fails to capture the attention as well as an opener should, despite it being a moderately fist-pumping affair, and it soon becomes clear that Reinforcer favour considered warfare over bezerker attacks. “Allegiance and Steel” ticks all the mandatory power metal boxes but is lacking in that all important ‘steel’ and while “Black Sails” throws a little piracy in the mix, the same plodding pace sadly persists. And persists. And persists. Admittedly, “Shieldmaiden” increases the heat but hardly reaches boiling point and, despite some lightning-bursts of speed, the less said about “Thou Shall Burn’s” ironically tepid temperature the better. 

Complaints regarding performances would be unfair as there’s nothing inherently wrong with what Reinforcer are doing, although the vocals of Logan Lexi are one-dimensional to say the least, and yet there’s precious little here to raise the heckles and it’s that nullifying experience which proves to be Prince Of The Tribes’ downfall.

Playing safe and to their strengths seems to be Reinforcer’s aim – and committed classic metal fans entrenched in the sacrosanct world of combat and cod-pieces (in other words, melodic metal at its most banal and predictable) will probably be satisfied with the results – but the rest of us will be left clamouring for something with a little more urgency and a lot more passion! 4/10

Prince Of The Tribes was released on June 18th, 2021 via Scarlet Records.