Honour - Valour - Pride is by far the weakest album by the band. Trust me. Do not let the 'Realm of Chaos'-esque album cover fool you into believing that the band finally decided to tune their guitars back down to the ground. This is basically in the same vein as the shit that they started pumping out on '...for Victory'. Unfortunately, there are even less memorable riffs than on that album, which, for yours truly, is quite an exepectional feat being that I've always considered '...for Victory' to be the band's lowest point, up until this album, of course.
Had Karl Willets remained on board during the recording process, this may have turned out slightly better... probably not by much, but better nonetheless. Unfortunately, Dave Ingram just not fit very well into the equation. I never thought that he sucked as a vocalist during his tenure in Benediction, but he never really stood out either. The best way to describe his delivery is to imagine what Barney from Napalm Death would sound like doing the Thorazine shuffle. There is no razor sharp diction to be found, nor is their much energy flowing from the mic. The whole ordeal sounds very lazy and uninspired overall.
Riff-wise, the same thing goes. There just really isn't anything going on here. Sure, every now and then something reminiscent of 'Mercenary' or even the better fare off of '...for Victory' will peep around the corner, offering a glimpse something adventurous to behold, only to disappear like some malevolent trickster. This is all very disheartening as I felt that the band's previous album, 'Mercenary', was a couple steps in the right direction after 1994's '...for Victory', an album that I didn't find to be terribly enthralling. Perhaps with the inclusion of Willets and a better guitar sound, this may have been a bit more interesting.
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