RETURN TO HEAVEN DENIED

Labyrinth's excellent second effort "Return To Heaven Denied" was released at a time, where symphonic metal reached it's peak. Bands like Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, Virgin Steele or Savatage were on the top of their game. The less well known Italian underground hopefulls Labyrinth showed with their good debut "No Limits", that there is still place for innovations in terms of symphonic speed metal, with their next album they simply improved their progressive sensibilitys and showed it off.

Already the opening piece "Moonlight" presents the symphonic speeders in full flight, with new singer Rob Tyrant, new keyboarder Andrew McPauls and new drummer Mat Stancioiu (great Italian pseudonyms), fantastic acoustic guitars, which foreshadows their more progressive influences on the whole album. "New Horizons" is one of the best examples for the more complex songwriting skills of the group in that matter. Wonderful catchy ballads like "The Night Of Dreams" and "Falling Rain" were powerful emotional and heart wrenching at the same time, with the superb "Lady Lost In Time" and the heavy anthem "Thunder" the definite highlights already made out and the album closer "Die For Freedom" set the perfect impression to an excellent record.

For die-hard proggers this is a quite unrelevant release, but fans of prog metal and specially those who listen to bands like Angra or Rhapsody should definitely check it out, there is nothing disappointing to find at all. The production is excellent, with powerful guitar and bass sound. As I liked this band from the very first time, "Return To Heaven Denied" still remains as their best album for my taste.

album rating: 8.5/10 points = 86 % on MPV scale = 4/5 stars

point-system: 0 - 3 points = 1 star / 3.5 - 5.5 points = 2 stars / 6 - 7 points = 3 stars / 7.5 - 8.5 points = 4 stars / 9 - 10 points = 5 stars

The first album in Labyrinth's Return to Heaven Denied series is a solid slice of no-nonsense power metal, with cheese strictly rationed, tight compositions, and competent performances from all the participants. I don't hear anything on it which bowls me over with its originality, but I can enjoy the album from start to finish without finding it trite or irritating in sections, and when you find power metal as hit-or-miss as I do that's an achievement in itself. (In particular, it's nice to see in Andrew McPauls a power metal keyboardist who is able to take a somewhat subtle and original approach to the music rather than laying on the orchestral effects and bombast thick.)