March of the Lost starts rather ambiguously with some cut and paste leading to blank noise. You won't have a clue what to expect and this is definitely a good place to start with The Holland Account.
The band are clearly very metal with music that crashes and rolls with hints of Black Sabbath, System of a down, Queens of the Stone Age and just a flavour of a Perfect Circle and Machine Head (or something of a similar ilk). However, what's really great and original about their song is the incredible blend of music that takes place. It's a strange cacophony of metal that creates something new while drawing on a huge range of influences.
The lead singer has a fantastic classic metal voice that is somewhere between Ozzy (In his Black Sabbath Days) and Josh Homme - with some slightly heavier metal vocals thrown in to. He has a powerful and strong voice but manages to bring a lot of emotion to his lyrics. As the song builds he manages to bring more and more intensity to his lyrics and performance and you really get a sense that he’s throwing everything into perfecting those vocals. The lyrics offer you a close to, but slightly off, atypical and excellent metal song about marching forth and personal struggle - it would be battle metal with different music but it works fantastically with the band. The lyrics form a fantastic picture and the way it all comes together is perfect.
The music is where this song really pushes out the rock metal boundaries. There's a lot going on. You have your typical old school metal sound with rolling, tidal riffs that sweep you up and push the song along. Then you have more modern influences shining through with the bouncy, edgy guitar riffs with short sharp trill sand licks that create a fantastic melody and a sense of pace at the same time. The guitar and bass work really is EXCEPTIONAL and i'd love to be in a pit for this. Then there's the drums, ah yes the drums. The drummer is truly epic and delivers non-stop crashing rolling drums with plenty of double tap that gives a huge depth to the song. All of these styles and sounds come together to create something brilliant – it’s what battle metal would be if you stripped away the over the top operatic influences and just headed for pure metal at its rawest and finest.
Overall March of the Lost Is like a thunderstorm of metal and music that grinds you into the ground whilst making you bounce out of it at the same time! The music complements the vocals and lyrics perfectly and what results is a truly epic metal song. I’d recommend you guys check it out and see what you think – here at BEAT100 we’re already anxious to see more.
