The colour red is heavily dominating the third release from NOMANS LAND, for sure one of the best Pagan Metal bands from Russia. Red can also be found in blood & wine and so a more than suitable metaphor for nearly every battle within the last 5000 years – and these heroic battles are a very present topic on “Raven Flight”. Song titles like ‘Sea Battlefield’ and ‘War Song’ transfer you right into the middle of a bloody battle and this impression isn’t only based on the lyrical side. Sometimes it’s very difficult to describe music in words but I’ll give it a try with ‘Hail Normann’, the best song on this release. The song begins with a short drum “solo” interrupted after seconds by a dark rif which is supported during the whole song by a fantastic keyboard line, and the whole song is building up to an atmospheric climax – very powerful 4 minutes and the masterpiece would be done if you could offer a complete album on such a high level. But we have to await at least a further release from NOMANS LAND because “Raven Flight” hasn’t become the expected masterpiece. The main reason is the lack of more than a handful of really impressive songs, several songs just passing by without any further notice and this impression does not change even after listening several times to this album. At the end I have to admit that “Raven Flight” is still not one of “these” records (I’m just trying to avoid the word average) but the term near by is more than applicable. www.nomansland.ru, www.einheit-produktionen.de