From The Grim Tower: The first thing I thought of when I heard his third full-length from Portland's Sunrunner was The Lord Weird Slough Feg. If you remember some of their earlier records, you're going to notice a little bit of similarities in their progressive thrash, which is definitely how this sounds, even though it can get quite doomy at times too. But that's fine with me. The band says that they take a lot from Sabbath, Rush and Maiden, but I'm hearing an awful lot of the folk-influenced doom/thrash that I named earlier, of which I have no problem with. If there's anything I can say about Sunrunner, it's that these guys can definitely play their instruments well and would be an absolute wonder to see live. This isn't a band that just performs well in a verse/chorus standpoint, and even though they manage to pull of a rather catchy folk number called "The Plummet" (4:01) these guys are so much more than your average progressive folk metal mixture. If the first eight tracks haven't stunned you from a textural standpoint, than the rippling muscularity of the album's title cut and closer (21:14) will definitely take hold of you. Every bit of those twenty-one minutes are used in proficiently crafting memorable melodies, scrumptious solos and powerful vocal efforts. There aren't any harsh vocals on the disc, or even one single strand of extreme heaviness, as the band sort of keeps the sound engrained into their seventies or eighties influences. The production value is decidedly modern, but the sound isn't. Apparently they're calling this shit "dad rock" now, which makes me want to slaughter a couple thousand young hipsterlittes and stop this plague before it even starts. God forbid, all of our precious and legendary metal acts will seen be thrown into this horrid category by a bunch of pre-pubescent teenagers who think acts like Black Veil Brides or Falling In Reverse are "real metal." Such is actually the case with these Portlanders however, who've proven that sometimes the old ways are indeed the best ways and there's absolutely nothing like a good musical composition to get the toes tapping. You might even bang your head a little, as you should - it is heavy metal after all. Heliodromus literally delivers more than enough in it's very first song (Keepers Of The Rite (5:28) yet keeps the wonder coming all of the way to it's end. As I said, fans of the early The Lord Weird Slough Feg work will most certainly find something here, as well they should. To many of us, this is what heavy metal used to sound like... and if you want to call it "dad rock" or some other pretentious hipster fodder, then that is alright with me. As I'd rather sit on a firmly planted on a dad rock, then float away on some ridiculous new "fly-by-night" trend that will be in and out with the next generation. Heliodromus is real heavy metal. It's absolutely timeless and is enough to assure me that the genre will never truly die, no matter how many years and trends may come and go. It also makes me thirst for their two self-titled records, which you'll want right after this monolith of a release. As you should.
