{"id":305313,"date":"2026-02-27T19:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/305313\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T19:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:34:13","slug":"rozario-northern-crusaders-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/305313\/","title":{"rendered":"Rozario – Northern Crusaders Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"After removing my clothes, I wade into the promo sump. Yes, nakedness is advised for such a foray, as any loose material can get you ensnared by the bog\u2019s filtration and disposal machinery or by the foul denizens that reside within the sludge. I enter herein with a single purpose in mind: to find a promo that will restore my credibility as a reviewer, if I ever had any to begin with. Since my return to the hall, I\u2019ve written 3.5 after 3.5, and I am in search of something that will bring my average down before I am made to \u201cnon-suspiciously\u201d disappear again. I reach down and grasp a promising prospect. Pieces of congealed n00b meat and 16-year-old promo remains fall from the cover, revealing a band name that sounds like some guy\u2019s last name and a photo of several dudes in various tough-guy poses. I smile, allowing myself to hope that I\u2019ve found what I\u2019m looking for. Further investigation reveals Rozario\u2019s Northern Crusaders to be a 50-minute-long heavy\/power metal album, and I tell myself that this has 2.5 written all over it. Yep, this\u2019ll do.<\/p>\n

My confidence grows when I see that these Norwegians have picked the album\u2019s first two songs as singles. \u201cFire and Ice\u201d starts things off with some energetic power metal-infused heavy metal that brings Dream Evil immediately to mind. After a huge earworm chorus and some killer riffing and leads, the song winds down, and I\u2019m horrified to realize that I\u2019ve been involuntarily smiling and headbanging the whole time. Fear not, I say to myself. The next single can\u2019t be as good. \u201cWe are One\u201d takes the momentum of the opener and runs with it. I hear Brainstorm. I hear Dio. I hear more Dream Evil. I hear an even bigger chorus. Shit.<\/p>\n

Not to worry! I\u2019m sure they\u2019ve simply stacked the singles at the front because they\u2019re the best tunes. A qualitative drop-off is sure to come! Just as those foolish words finish leaving my mind-lips, \u201cDown Low\u201d slaps me across the face with a down-tuned chug that I didn\u2019t see coming. This PED-enhanced version of Rozario, also seen on \u201cSleepless\u201d and \u201cBetrayed,\u201d fits the Brainstorm mold alluded to above, and even ventures towards Mystic Prophecy levels of heaviness. \u201cCrusader\u201d and \u201cDie Like Warriors\u201d both see the band putting their Saxon pants on, their quality daring me to add them both to my \u201cSWOARDS\u201d playlist of battle-ready metal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I finish Northern Crusaders for the first time and am surprised at just how fast the album\u2019s 50 minutes flew by. I play it again. I like it even more. I am totally fucked. Sure, I can look across the album\u2019s track list and pick out two songs that I don\u2019t absolutely love (\u201cComing Home\u201d and \u201cThe Warning\u201d), but they\u2019re still good songs whose place in the runtime almost totally mitigates any potential impact they could have had on the overall flow. I\u2019m rather pissed that singer David Rosario puts in a journeyman performance with his weathered voice, and I\u2019m even more upset that he\u2019s filled his near-eponymous band with so much talent, particularly on guitar. The duo of Stein Hjertholm and Taran Lister has filled these tracks with muscular riffs, beautiful leads, and face-melting solos, and this is a huge reason that Northern Crusader feels so effortless and easily replayable. Even the production is fantastic. Gah! What a catastrophe!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now been several weeks since I plucked this from the sump. As I put the finishing touches on the review and prepare to enter the final rating, I am suddenly aware of a presence in the room with me. I look up from my laptop screen to see 3.5<\/a> glaring at me with a sinister smile on its face. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t live with your own failure,\u201d it says. \u201cWhere did that bring you? Back to me.\u201d I type the score, realizing it is futile to resist, fully aware that I\u2019ve made the mistake of judging Rozario\u2019s Northern Crusaders by its cover. I slam my computer screen down, stand up, and walk away, naked and full of shame.<\/p>\n

Rating: 3.5\/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Pride & Joy Music<\/a>
Websites: rozarioofficial.com<\/a> | facebook.com\/rozarioband<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: February 20th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After removing my clothes, I wade into the promo sump. Yes, nakedness is advised for such a foray,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2246,837,167042,167043,167044,156,152203,117044,33748,157,167045,111,139,167046,2788,69,26070,167047,762,763,167048,143121],"class_list":{"0":"post-305313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-3-5","10":"tag-brainstorm","11":"tag-dio","12":"tag-dream-evil","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-feb26","15":"tag-hard-rock","16":"tag-heavy-metal","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-mystic-prophecy","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-northern-crusaders","22":"tag-norwegian-metal","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-power-metal","25":"tag-pride-joy-music","26":"tag-review","27":"tag-reviews","28":"tag-rozario","29":"tag-saxon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}