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MOB RULES “Stories From the Verdant Vale”
MOB RULES “Stories From the Verdant Vale”
By Colonel Angus
Here is a “new” release from MOB RULES and I put new in quotes for a reason. If you are a die-hard fan who has purchased all their special edition releases, you already have all the material here. I would direct this disk to those of us (myself included) who are fans of the band but are certainly more than the casual listener of MOB RULES. These tracks have been released previously on the 2-CD version of last year’s “Rise of the Ruler” along with a number of tunes that were released all the way back in 2014, some with some cool guest vocalists.
While these were tunes that were left off the original “Rise of the Ruler” album, they are certainly not what I would consider to be cutting room floor material. There is definitely some gold on this here disk with “Masquerade Ball” being the best of the bunch. That track in particular has this great strutting riffing that reminds me of some of the earlier IRON MAIDEN material. Elsewhere we get “Savage Land (Reprise)” which is definitely an intro type of track that harkens back to their early sound. The real meat starts with “Master of the Black Crow” which has this great catchy riff and I have to wonder why this tune was left off the previous record. Barely hitting the three minute mark, this piece has all the hallmark MOB RULES elements and would have fit thematically on “Rise of the Ruler”.
Previously mentioned “Masquerade Ball” is the highlight and again it is a mystery as to why this was left off the last disk given the room available on a compact disk. The epic ballad of “Above the Maelstrom” slows things down a bit but still keeps the quality level up with some powerful vocals from Klaus Dirks. The fast and furious “Balance of Power” ends this section of the “Stories From the Verdant Vale”. They continue to keep the level of quality up and it’s hard to imagine that these five tracks were left off the last album.
The other five tunes were previously released on the “Timekeeper” (20th Anniversary Box) but were not part of the promo so I am unable to review those tracks. That being said, if you don’t have the release, I’m sure that it would make a nice addition to your collection. While this is not brand new material, it is still a cooL addition to your MOB RULES collection, provided you don’t have the special editions that came before.
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