SKYCONQUEROR is a straight heavy metal band founded in the surroundings of Münster (North Western Germany) in early 1997. With demo releases "Streak of Lighting" (1998), "Silver Haze Rising" (2000) and "Forged in Hell" (2003) with little or no measurable sales before grabbing some attention and fanbase after two full-length studio releases in 2008 and 2014. Their latest effort, almost ten years later, "The Black Raven" self-released February 11, 2023 as five song EP. With their awesome band members names and hailing from Germany, a country that has a history of producing great metal bands, I am pumped to drop the needle down on this album

Opening with pure metal essence and elements on "Deaths Call" with pounding riffs and thumping back beat sandwiched alongside pretty disappointing and syrupy vocals lacking any spark or intensity, while the song does possess some flashes of basic metal elements, it just never gets down and dirty. On to the title track "The Black Raven" with still high hopes, opens with a soft tease of sober backdrop before blasting out with a beefy and gritty guitar riff and hard rocking solo midway through, but again, the vocals are out of place and dissonant, they don't mesh and feel unorthodox. So far, a swing and miss on the first two tracks,  I feel this band went with a straight forward approach and concept of what's been proven that works in heavy metal and never dug down deep to develop their sound. For my assessment of "Chainbreaker", see above. "Wolves of the Rhine" does offer up a little different sound heading down a more sinister and darker path with edgy melody and the best riffs and guitar work so far, but overall, nothing to get excited about.

I had extremely high expectations on this album and SKYCONQUENOR in general, and I really did give "The Black Raven" every opportunity before writing this review. I gave the album a second listen and tried really hard to like it and present a positive vibe, but there was no "oomph" and unfortunately, I just couldn't get past the mundane, lackluster vocals, musically this album is nothing us metalheads haven't heard a million times before.