LEGENDARY TALES

Rhapsody's music is an interesting mix of strong classical influences and power metal. You can find in their albums echoes of Helloween, Manowar or Blind Guardian blended with baroque music and medieval chants. "One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with age and memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present, like sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake." In J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord Of The Rings" one of the characters, used these words to describe his first impression of the Ents. Perhaps use the same words to describe the music of this Italian band from Trieste could be a little bit daring, but I think that it could give you an idea. Lyrics are inspired by a "saga" in "Tolkien's style" and "Legendary Tales" is just the first chapter.

The opener, "Ira tenax" is just a short introduction sung in Latin that reminds of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and that leads to "Warrior Of Ice", a track where reminiscences of eighties heavy metal (Europe) are intertwined with choirs and baroque strings. "Demons of abyss wail for my pride / On wings of glory I'll fly brave and wild. Fight your holy war / Rise your mighty sword and ride". The following "Rage Of The Winter" is in the same mood, while "The Forest Of Unicorns" comes like the calm after the storm featuring flute and acoustic guitar. "Beware of unholy fire / My guardian of the trees."

The rhythm goes up again with "Flames Of Revenge"; "Virgin Skies" is just a short calm instrumental break featuring flute and harpsichord that leads to the melodic and energetic "Land Of Immortals". The music fluently goes on without boring moments. "Echoes Of Tragedy", "Lord Of The Thunder" and the long final title track are other good examples of the Rhapsody's style. Anyway, in my opinion lyrics are not the strength of the band: the effort to describe the fight of Good against Evil is clumsy and there's an abuse of words like "Pride", "Glory", "Revenge", "Holy war", "Holy blood", "Holy Rage", etc. that nowadays could sound "politically incorrect".

In the whole an excellent debut album, full of freshness and energy, but not a real masterpiece.