By: Anders

Posted: Dec 5, 2005

This band consisting of quite known men, released their debut "Rapture" in 2001, that album never really caught onto me back then. Though now Eric Peterson, Steve Smyth, Derrick Ramirez, Lyle Livingston and Jon Allen are ready with their new full length album "Black Wings Of Destiny", a travel into the kingdom of blackened heavy metal, with a touch of symphonic black metal.

The album is being marketed as a black metal record, though the style is merely technical heavy metal with modern and symphonic black metal influences in the vein of newer Dimmu Borgir and Emperor. The compositions are well made, quite catchy and bombastic, and at other times more straight forward and breath-taking. There isn't delivered much new-thinking, a lot of the parts can be traced back to the bands mentioned earlier and a couple of other bands. Though the effort from the musicians are flawless, there are tons of good guitar work on the album, good riffs, good melodies, killer solos and captivating leads, Peterson and Smyth are amazing guitarists, no doubt about that. Peterson's raw and raspy vocals are also good and fitting, though his performance in the Thin Lizzy cover 'Emerald' takes the prize, a really good vocal performance, which fits the darkness the band sheds the track in.

The sound on the album is good as well, dark and sinister, but still quite clear and especially the guitar sound is coming clean cutting through. The bass is also audible most of the time, as well as the drums being placed good in the mix. The recording and mixing happened in Studio Fredman together with Fredrik Nordström.

Good compositions the band has made, though considering the lyrical help from Del James (Guns N' Roses, Testament) and classical compositional help from Charlie Storm it should be like that. There are many bombastic, epic and captivating moments on the album, though I can't help finding resemblances a lot of the time. Though still a very enjoyable dark and bombastic heavy metal album, containing a good Thin Lizzy cover and killer musicianship.

Rating: 7/10

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