What a great and majestic power metal album. Rhapsody of Fire give us another symphonic and power metal adventure, full of energy, great choruses and mixes of guitars and keyboards.
This album feels big, bombastic, epic, it deserves all these qualifiers that get overused when describing power metal. We’re sure of that with the first song, “Son of Vengeance” with its symphonic intro and its big chorus sung by the entire band. It also includes a nice a capella part, followed by a pretty good guitar solo, and one last serving of this epic chorus. From here, we know the album will go all the way to be epic.
It doesn’t disappoint on following tracks like “Kingdom of Ice” and its super-fast riffs and drums, and its catchy chorus, also sung by the entire band. Giacomo Voli also shows more passion and energy in his vocals, doing lots of belting and high notes. There’s also “Terial the Hawk” and its catchy chorus about a powerful bird made of ice, “Maiden of the Secret Sand” and its heavy riffs, about the narrator’s love for a mysterious woman, the title track, alternating between a classical choir and powerful vocals, and its awesome solo.
Aside from its awesome energy, the album also includes some interesting ideas, like the more symphonic-inspired title track or the flute and spoken word interlude “Eternal Snow”, with the flute part continuing and being more developed on “Terial the Hawk”. “Abyss of Pain II” starts with haunting choirs and snarly vocals. It’s a long and complex track switching between anger and pain, choirs and power metal, lyrics in English and Italian. This isn’t the only time the album uses different languages, as the two last tracks are Italian and Spanish versions of each other.
As for the few weak spots of the album: some solos tend to sound a little too similar to each other, and I’d say “Infinitae Gloriae” are more generic and less memorable than the rest of the album. But even though I had to mention that, I don’t think this was such a big problem, because it’s overall a great album.
It’s fun, full of energy and well-crafted songs with catchy choruses and powerful riffs. It feels epic, like all good power metal albums are supposed to. It sounds great, and equally enjoyable to listen to and to talk about. I hope you’ll enjoy this one too.
Release date: November 26th, 2021
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