Grave Digger – The Ballad of Mary

Releasedate: 04-03-2011; Label: Napalm Records
By: Brandy Cross

Grave digger is a German power metal band that formed in the mid 1980’s. Despite numerous band breakups, changes in lineup and a few flopped albums, the band is still going strong today with their fast paced solo’s, historical concept albums and strong vocals.
The Ballad of Mary EP is a Scottish concept album based on Scottish history surrounding the period of Mary Queen of Scotts. The Ballad Of Mary is written stoicly about the period when Mary was forced to abdicate her throne and she fled to England where Elizabeth 1, her 1st cousin once removed, held her prisoner for 18-19 years before having her beheaded for treason. ’18 years a living hell, The Scottish crown belongs to me’.

The first track on the album is ‘The Ballad of Mary’, the long version, featuring a female duet with Gravedigger singer Chris Boltendahl with Doro Pesch taking some of the parts as ‘Mary Queen of Scotts’. This goes into a the metal song ‘Rebellion’, a fast paced introduction to Scottish history with a bagpipe solo , while it isn’t really clear what period of Scottish/English warfare this one is about it can be assumed to be the second Scottish war of Independence. Next comes another version of ‘The Ballad of Mary’, this time with slightly softer vocals, more orchestra, and a few seconds shorter playtime still with female duet except Van Canto instead of Doro. ‘Highland Farewell’ starts out with a bagpipe intro, power metal style, and swiftly changes into a heavy guitar riff complete with power metal chorus that you can even headbang to. The final track, ‘Coming Home’ is probably the heaviest song on the EP, starts out with an out of this world heavy guitar riff, then bagpipes kick in at the same time as the vocals about 30 seconds into playtime, this is a mostly successful attempt to create something epic.

Overall the album is pretty cool, I wouldn’t say that it is Gravediggers best album but it is definitely worth listening to and buying. Gravedigger is famous for their concept albums so this one isn’t to much of a surprise, however, they did pull if off in a rather nice fashion. The lyrics are dramatized but historically accurate, the vocals are good. Everything seems to be well thought out and arranged with care. The only thing I wasn’t 100% sure about on the album was when the bagpipes kick in on ‘Coming Home’, however, after listening to it again, it sounds great. You really couldn’t ask for to much more except maybe a longer album.

Line Up:
Chris Boltendahl – Vocals
Axel Ritt – Guitars
Jens Becker – Bass
Stefan Arnold – Drums

Tracklist: 01. The Ballad Of Mary 02. Rebellion 03. The Ballad of Mary (Extended Symphonic Version) 04. Highland Farewell 05. Coming Home

Links:
Grave Digger Official