Album Review: The Unity - Pride

Power metal is a fickle thing for me. Despite being the genre that got me into metal, I got my fill of it long ago, and the cliches of the sound no longer thrill me. If a band isn't bringing excellent songwriting to the party, I'm not going to be in any mood to celebrate. The Unity's first album fit that bill, a perfectly solid record that was rather standard, and in turn didn't move me. But then I gave their second record a chance, and it upped the bar in every way. "Rise" was an album that had rousing melodies and songs that stuck the landing. It took any expectations I had for The Unity, and turned them on their head. That record was great, and made me curious to see if and how they could follow it up.

"Hands Of Time" kicks things off, and immediately I'm struck by a thought I didn't think I would have; The Unity sounds like a pumped-up version of Revolution Saints. Gianbattista Manenti's voice has the same smooth-tinged roughness that Deen Castronovo does, but the songs he's got to sing are bigger, and less rote than the standard melodic rock that other band has given us. The Unity's song is rocking and metallic, with a chorus meant to sing along to. It fits right in with what I loved about the last record.

As more songs unfold, I feel like it's unfair to call The Unity a power metal band, because they aren't filling their songs with relentless double-bass drumming and ear-piercing vocals. There are elements of power metal in some of the guitar work, but they are as much a melodic hard rock band as they are power metal. It's a blend that allows them to sound heavy and powerful, but also richly melodic and memorable. In fact, it's when they do veer more towards the metal side on "Angel Of Dawn" that the record loses a bit of steam. The stomping rhythm of the song is heavy, but the chorus doesn't have the same sheen and melody that makes the rest of the songs so appealing.

There is a nice amount of diversity to the record. We get the opening songs that are pure melodic rock, the aforementioned metal stomper, then "Damn Nation" is the most traditionally power metal song, and "Wave Of Fear" has some mid-90s post-grunge to the melodies and the way the vocals blend together. A lot of The Unity's contemporaries essentially write the same song countless times over, and that is surely not the case with this record. There's a little bit of something for everyone.

With this album, The Unity have once again shown themselves to be a band capable of writing some great melodic metal. Is it as good a record as "Rise"? Honestly, I don't think it is. There was something special about that record I don't hear in this one, but not many bands are able to have that happen more than once. "Pride" may not be their career-defining masterpiece, but it's a really good melodic metal album. There's nothing wrong with that.