Raptore - Renaissance - LP

From their humble beginnings in 2012, RAPTORE have risen to the top of the true metal pack in the intervening decade. The band’s roots started with vocalist/guitarist Nico Cattoni, originally hailing from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and his first lineup released their first demo in 2014 and then the debut album Rage N’ Fever in 2016, which allowed RAPTORE to tour South America and open for such bands as Exciter and Enforcer. Then, not being able to find suitable musicians for a steady lineup, Nico decides in 2018 to move to Europe in order to give his band better opportunities and recognition. He set base in Barcelona and completed the lineup with three of the most talented musicians in the scene. While they were booked for festivals such as Pyrenean and Trveheim, unfortunately, the pandemic delayed those concerts until 2022. Meanwhile, RAPTORE were brewing their breakthrough record, the full-length Blackfire. Eventually released during the summer of 2022 through DYING VICTIMS, Blackfire literally EXPLODED with an excitement that simply could not be contained – and the international metal scene took notice.

With the stage thus set, RAPTORE manage to magickally eclipse that feat with their third album, Renaissance. Truly titled, Renaissance is a tour-de-force of classic & classy HEAVY METAL steeped in all the black velvet and neon-lit chrome of the mythical ‘80s. So authentically rendered and passionately played, so rapturously engaging and dreamily transcendental, so simply AWESOME (and – again – explosive), it would not be remiss to suggest that RAPTORE somehow travelled through time and returned with a lost sacred scroll from 1986 or even 1989. Across its whip-tight nine tracks in 34 minutes, Renaissance spans a wealth of vintage metallic styles – smoothly cruising speed metal, Sunset Strip darkness, hard rock mysticism, juiced-up hair metal – and weaves them into a rich tapestry of moody & melodic metal that’s so silky and elegant at every turn, simple aesthetic pigeonholing doesn’t apply.

Granted, RAPTORE are very much (and always will be) a metal band above all, but their songwriting and textural coloring have grown impossibly more on Renaissance: by turns, a more “mature” and yet also more “fun” version of themselves. The stained-glass organ & synth intro opens the headspace for the focused eclecticism to follow; there’s a brightness to their attack that soon submits to the shadows – not straight-to-the-abyss “darkness,” but not peering away from it, either – and the deftly layered, powerfully HUGE production allows RAPTORE’s musings to take on an even greater and more personal emotional heft. So, while Renaissance could be likened to the underdog metal that clawed its way onto the radio during the latter half of the ‘80s, Nico & crew exude a daresay smarter sensibility to their catchier-than-ever anthems.

From masterclass to world class, RAPTORE are breaking the chains of their breakthrough record with that ever-crucial third album. How far Renaissance will go, we can only speculate, but it’s not unjust to suggest it stacks alongside other velvet metal classics like Don Dokken’s Up From the Ashes, W.A.S.P.’s Inside the Electric Circus, Whitesnake’s Slip of the Tongue, Warlock’s Triumph and Agony, the more serious moments to Slaughter’s Stick It to Ya, or even ‘80s KISS during theirs – as well as, of course, such cold-steel killers like Judas Priest’s Defenders of the Faith and Scorpions’ Blackout. Ready for this Renaissance?

Tracklist
SIDE A:
Ecclesia / Satana / Abaddon / Darklight / Requiescat In Pace
SIDE B:
Into The Bowels / Kingdom Come / Imperium / All Fires The Fire