Battle Symphony – The Empire of God (2024)

Battle Symphony are a relatively new Symphonic Power Metal band from Greece, with their debut being released recently in 2022. It was a very interesting and promising start with a plethora of guests not limited to the local scene. As such, I was very eager to see how the band would evolve for their second effort. 

The Empire of God is a concept album about the history of the Byzantine Empire and is destined to divide people because a portion of vocals and music is A.I. generated, on top of ALL choirs and chants. To give my view on this, I am generally against it. We are already flooded with new music from artists that pour their heart into creating art, so the last thing we need is even more supply that is machine created. That said, If someone composes an entire record, uses AI to slightly improve the final result and ends up creating something memorable, should we dismiss it? Philosophical question, for now I am giving this album a chance because I did the same with Unleash the Archers and didn’t witness anything off putting there. 

The record has a rather straightforward approach with heavy symphonic elements, both due to intense keyboard presence and of course since there are choirs placed everywhere. We could say that the final result is the road where Sabaton and Therion would meet. There are some singers but they are more limited across the record, with choirs having the lion’s share. It is a combination that I like very much and if done right, albums like that always end up as my favorites. 

IF done right, because The Empire of God greets us with some glaring issues the moment we cross its threshold. For a record that had its vocals generated, you would expect a good musical backbone to give some value to the final result. What Battle Symphony have done, is completely strip the songs from complex structures, remove any hint of solos or extended instrumental passages and instead put a strong emphasis on choirs. Essentially, they have taken away any small detail that could add some emotion to the songs, with the no solo part hurting the most! Needless to say that choirs sound wooden and cold. I tried to find some soul in there but couldn’t, however much i tried. 

Let’s try to isolate the music that is supposed to be composed. Unfortunately, the production is very bad with instruments lacking any dynamism and everything feels distant from each other. The outcome is like you are hearing a demo version and is totally not acceptable for a finished release. The last minute of Ruins will make you think that your speakers have a problem, similar to the middle part of Aghia Sophia to name a few. Also, what is the case with The Fall Of The Queen Of Cities? Its volume is on much higher levels than the rest of the album, like you are creating a playlist from random artists where everything is obviously mixed differently. 

After finishing The Empire of God a couple of times I cannot help but feel it is an album devoid of love and care, with the minimum possible effort invested. By placing the sophomore next to the debut War on Earth, you will find a chaotic drop in quality. Remember, we traded Roberto Tiranti, Daniel Heiman, Nicholas Leptos, Gus Drax, lead guitars and songs like The Final Change for this! If we dismiss the AI, there are so many wrong stuff about this record that it is almost impossible to find a redeeming quality. Adding the AI to the conclusion, leads to a tragic outcome. I view the album as an effort to utilize technology, as a huge shortcut to create something, just for the sake of it and see who buys. Making it available to the public just to spark conversation would be somewhat understandable, but asking full price for it and advertising it as a beacon of epic metal prowess, is almost insulting.  

P.S. Did Empire of God trigger your desire for a good album revolving around the Byzantine Empire? I wouldn’t want you to leave from this review dissappointed, so please listen to Aeternam – Heir of the Rising Sun. THAT’s how you do it! 

20/100

Pavlos Pavlakis

On behalf of Metal Domain