The word 'epic' means many things to many people, and these days, it is often used casually in conversation to mean anything positive, but to the doomy epic metal band Realmbuilder, the word epic means one thing: a grand journey. Blue Flame Cavalry, the third release by this American outfit, is comprised of eventful songs that are larger and more majestic than those heard on their first two albums (Summon the Stone Throwers and Fortification of the Pale Architect). The two founders and songwriters in this band have been friends for nearly thirty years: The first concert that JH Halberd and Czar went to together as kids was Judas Priest on the Painkiller tour. JH Halberd (bass, rhythm guitar, keyboards, and wind instruments) is Jeff Herriott, a tenured music professor at the University of Whitewater at Whitewater and a composer whose new music compositions have been played all over the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In addition to receiving grants for his music, he also makes music with the electronic post rock band, Bell Monks. Czar (lead vocals, drums, and lyrics) is S. Craig Zahler, a metalhead who makes his living as a screenwriter and a novelist. He wrote the script for the movie Asylum Blackout, and has five movie projects in development right now, (including one with Michael Mann (Heat) and another with Park Chan Wook (Old Boy)). Additionally, he will soon direct his first feature, a horror western starring Kurt Russell called Bone Tomahawk, and has two critically-acclaimed and very brutal western novels available worldwide: A Congregation of Jackals and Wraiths of the Broken Land. On Realmbuilder's new release, Blue Flame Cavalry, listeners will be ushered into the realm with a short anthem, 'They Write Their Names With Fire,' which is a direct continuation of the driving heavy metal from the band's two previous releases. Thereafter, things get big. 'Advance of the War Giants' is thirteen-minute composition that marches through many new terrains for the band - a journey heralded by a ram's horn and tidal waves of harmony guitar. 'Adrift Upon the Night Ocean' is a spacious and lush cut, an introspective and very personal journey, and the last song - 'Blue Flame Cavalry' - is possibly the band's finest track to date, an overture and a song within a song, alternately bleak and rousing. Blue Flame Cavalry is the ultimate realization of the band's fantastical vision - a unique and heartfelt album of doomy epic metal. Blow the ancient horn!
