By: Anders

Posted: Dec 19, 2005

This Italian band is according to the press-material almost quite legendary within the world of melodic symphonic power metal, and they do have an impressive amount of releases in the past, I have to admit that I have heard the band name mentioned many times before, but I am pretty sure that this is my first encounter with their music.

The first thing that strike my ears, is the quite awful synth sound there is on the album, the intro synth part, sounds like a guitar being picked and processed into sounding like a cheap toy-keyboard, not the best start, and the quite bad synth/keyboard sound continues throughout the album. The general sound of the album isn't the best as well, the production is quite thin, and that doesn't become the guitars and drums very good, they sound too weak, considering all the good productions being released these days and there are demos with better and more fitting productions, than the one this album has received.

The compositions have traces of good song writing, though bearing marks of standard song writing and talking the easy way, hence following the safe path made by other bands time upon time. I miss some good hooks and some really good melodies and riffs, and perhaps better and more catchy vocal work.

This album has been an immense disappointment to listen to, it has been a hell to be dragged through the 10 songs repeatedly to finally have listened enough to be able to write this. Some albums are better off not being released in my loud-mouthed opinion, and this is one of them. Skylark even manages to ruin the good and once catchy Mike Oldfield track 'Moonlight Shadow', sad. The hints of good song writing skills and the sparse atmospheric hooks, are what keep this album falling all the way to the bottom.

Rating: 2/10

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