Although Rising Faith’s debut album The Arrival won’t make it into the history books for being the worst old school heavy metal album of the year, it certainly won’t be famous for being the best. These Swedish heavy metal warriors proclaim to play a musical style that’s influenced by bands like Vicious Rumours, Mercyful Fate, and Judas Priest, although I can only hear the latter. Well, there is the short interlude called “The Gathering” which could indeed fit on a Mercyful Fate album, but that’s about it and it’s not much more than some atmospheric sounds and some menacing whispering.

The Arrival is an album filled with up-tempo metal tracks that feature some very good riffing but are too repetitive in structure. Moreover, since all the songs are played at the same speed, everything starts sounding the same after awhile.

Add to that the more than terrible vocals of singer Kristian Wallin, who sounds like he’d fit right in a hit chart alternative punk rock band, and you have a recipe for disaster. I don’t understand why the biography states ‘some already call him the discovery of the year’, because to be frank (pun intended) he really doesn’t sound convincing or powerful, nor does he fit the tight metal.

Is there nothing good on this record then? Well, sure there is. Like I already mentioned before The Arrival features some very good riffing. The sound quality of the album is good; it comes as no surprise that it was mastered by Andy La Roque. Some of the songs are really quite decent. Just don’t listen to the whole CD at once, because you’ll get bored out of your mind.