The first song “Parlainth” is basically an intro to the story, and nothing special about it. The second song however immediately draws you into the story. A mixture of tight drumming, vocals filled with atmosphere and nice flute melodies. Every now and then the vocals are a bit out of tune, but nothing that bothers me. The chorus is especially catchy, and there are some nice dark background vocals. Third up is “Hirob’s Words”, which simply continues the story with a different melody. With a nice, melodic guitar intro to the song, and again the flutes, which provide so much atmosphere for the songs, this is another very decent song. The chorus is a little less catchy and less clean vocal-wise. The only thing I’ve missed so far is a great guitar solo, but perhaps it would interfere too much with the music I guess. Next is “The Spells”, which starts a little bit slower, compared to the previous songs, with some good guitar riffing, common to this type of music. Especially the subtle, high keyboard melodies in the background are very enjoyable, and all in all this song is quite good, better than the previous one. The vocalist doesn’t hold back in the high pitches, and I must say that it sounds quite good. The first guitar melody / solo I seem to notice is on the next song “Casket of the Last Resident”, and until the first verse begins great guitar melodies lead in the song. Apart from the great guitar work, nothing is especially worth mentioning in this song, it just adds up to an extremely decent work of music I was provided with with this CD.

A church organ? As if it couldn’t get any more versatile, the next song “Dark Destiny of Parlainth” begins with an intro made with a church organ, followed by great keyboard melodies and an operatic feel to the whole song. The chorus is again quite operatic and very catchy. I think I’d have to choose this song as one of the best on this album, though you should actually see the album as a whole, but it of course carries different levels of musical quality and this is one of the highlights. “Seance – Rebirth” is probably the song that stands out most, not because it’s extremely good, but because of its atmosphere. It has very dark intro, followed by orchestra that hits leading into the vocal parts. The vocals are a bit darker, and actually the whole song has quite a dark atmosphere, but it is very much welcome. The beginning of the next song “Cursed Soul” sounds a bit like a waltz, or something that was taking out of Danny Elfman’s work. It sounds very good, though I don’t like the vocal parts in this song. They do not fit to this slow tempo that much. The next song “Torgak’s Speech” remind me a bit of a mixture between Blind Guardian and In Extremo, especially because of the intro.

The rest of the CD simply continues the story but in different musical aspects, and adds some more variety to this album. All in all this is a very good concept album, if not the best I’ve heard in a while. Fans of symphonic / power metal should definitely check out this band!

written by Roy Boeren

Playing time: 57.29