Rising Revolution - symphonic power metal from the U.S.

Not knowing anything about the band, I decided to listen to their interpretation of symphonic power metal wondering how the young Americans would approach the genre. Well, for one thing, it seems like U.S. metal youth are not very interested in this type of musicianship, and seem to prefer the less complex and less challenging sounds of groove-core-based genres. Having to come up with melodies, figuring out the matter of having melodic singing and working on the development of a symphonic sound is probably a lot more work than one may imagine at first.

This year has seen Rising Revolution follow up their 2018 demo song called “Power Forever”. In 2022 they have two new songs, “Beasts of the Night” and “Freedom & Glory.” The band continues to grow in vision and capabilities towards the achievement of their sound.

As a different proposition in U.S. metal, Rising Revolution shows a great imagination of what they want to create, and now we are getting a glimpse of the potential. It is refreshing to hear a young band from the United States with an interest in good musicianship and songwriting in the style of melodic metal. The band says that it all began in 2014 in Richmond, Virginia with the two friends Ashwolf Grayson and José Díaz working on music in the band room at their school. Before they knew it, they had Ash (bass) and José (lead guitar) joined by Fletcher Harrell (drums), Marvin Ward (keys), and Kevin Potter (vocals & rhythm guitar). As it often happens, there have been line-up changes and nowadays only Ash, now doing vocals, remains from those early days leading the ship into new waters. Nowadays, the complete crew is Ashwolf (male vocals & keytar), Artemis Wray (female vocals), Zephyr McGrath (lead guitar), Zeldris (rhythm guitar), Ka-dir Elliotte (bass), and Ariel & Seraph split drum duties.

Their 2018 song “Power Forever” (4:36) already pointed to their ambition of an elegant type of rocking melodic symphonic style. It sounds like a young band finding their feet. Now in 2022 two new songs are called “Beasts of the Night” (3:39) and “Freedom & Glory” (6:01) and are from their upcoming debut album Revengeance: “a concept album from the perspective of a samurai from the 23rd century called by the mighty guardian deity Titan to vanquish his demonic foes, the Apocrypha.”

What caught my attention about the band is that Rising Revolution seems like they are just getting warmed up and that their best work is still ahead of them. They sound like a promising young band to keep an eye on and see how they develop the musical vision in the coming years. After hearing their songs with some more attention to detail, I still feel that they are a promising band and we will be pleasantly surprised when these wild horses harness their strength and begin to run with all their might. I like what I’m hearing, but I sense that this book’s first chapter is not even complete. This story is about to start.

Finally, the band says that they have been preparing for the 30th Annual Cutting Edge Music Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana and on kicking off a local metal festival Revolution Metal RVA in their area. Seems like they have been busy, right?

Prelude to REVENGEANCE by Rising Revolution

https://www.facebook.com/RisRev/