Release Date: 2007
Genre: Power Metal
Tracklisting:
1. The Magician (01:29)
2. The Chariot (04:23)
3. The Star (04:29)
4. Wheel Of Fortune (03:59)
5. The Emperor (04:09)
6. Devil In The Tower (07:51)
7. Death (05:00)
8. Lovers (04:06)
9. The Hanged Man (05:31)
10. The Moon (11:31)
11. Mozart’s March (02:40)
12. The Fool (04:12)
Total Length: 59:21
Wow, just look at that album cover. No shame, hmm? The Magician is kind of a generic keyboard intro. There are some good qualities to it but otherwise I feel like I’ve heard it plenty of times. The Chariot has a cool intro but I can’t stand the pseudo drum-and-bass feel during some of the verses. The chorus is kind of neat. There are also some hints of harsh vocals near the end, but usually they are pushed back other than one point I can remember on this album. The Star has a cheesy opening and the chorus is again the standout moment here.
Wheel Of Fortune sounds like a Kalmah opening which would have been a bit preferable to this band. I do feel like this band got a good amount of influence from Kamelot though. The song works well especially going back into the main melody after the chorus. The Emperor has some neat ideas but it begins a trend that comes up throughout that I don’t enjoy: repetitiveness. The opening lines are cool and give off a neat neo-classical vibe, but when they get repeated over and over throughout the song you get tired of it. There is also a brief bit of harsh vocals but they must not have been confident in them because they are mixed ridiculously low compared to the vocals before and after them. There are some other neat synth moments in the song too.
Devil In The Tower takes that repetitiveness to the nth degree in the middle of the song. The beginning is some cool neo-classical stuff with vocals that actually better the song instead of bringing it down for once. Halfway through the backing music stops and we get a cool multi-layered vocal section. It sounds certainly cool but it never adds on to the more than two or three sections of vocals, I mean Queen did more intricate stuff with like an eight track tape machine. It feels a tiny bit long because of that, but overall a neat idea. The ending of the song brings things together fairly well.
Death starts off a little boring, but once the instrumental section starts the song takes off and the ending brings it together pretty well. Lovers is the obligatory, slightly softer song. This song is decent but wholly unnecessary and I tend to forget it as soon as it’s over. The Hanged Man is another track that I could do it without. It just doesn’t do a whole ton for me. The Moon is the big piece of the album, taking from certain Beethoven works throughout the track. The first half of this song is pretty entertaining, and then we drop everything for a rendition of Moonlight Sonata. It does once again repeat itself for a bit near the end but I still quite like it.
The two bonus tracks start with Mozart’s March, basically just the band having fun and playing some Mozart in their own way. The Fool is a decent, generic song. It’s easy to see why it got relegated to bonus track. This album was a bit refreshing when I first heard it but its flaws are fairly easy to see. I think this band has good ideas but just don’t take any extra steps, but this is coming from a place of some ignorance.
Final Rating: 7/10
gazingogazongo 