SHADOW OF THE MOON

I was always mesmerized by medieval music and this album was my first contact with this genre, by BLACKMORE'S NIGHT (a kind of sexist name, don't you think? Kinda like "yeah Candice Night is Ritchie Blackmore's property..." - ridiculous *shakes head*). Anyway, what matters is the music, and i have to admit that this is pretty good stuff. It shows the most romantic side of medieval life, opening with the majestic title track and closing with the touching magnum-opus "Wish You Were Here" - not a FLOYD cover! In this group of tracks we have an excellent arrangement of the traditional English song "Greensleeves", which was also recorded by celtic music artist Loreena MacKennitt. This cover is amazing, with somewhat of a latin feel in it, not losing the medieval sounding roots though. There's also a couple of good instrumentals making this album very appealing. Unfortunately, there's one awful track here that prevents me from giving this a 4-star ranking that a solid album would deserve because it is horribly out of place and destroys all the album's flow - and it had to be placed right at the middle of the album! The name of the thief is "Writing on the Wall". Why did they add this? This is horrible electronic music that shouldn't be placed here, and breaks all the album's consistence. How i wish this track was out of here, so i'd not need to use the SKIP button! The rest though is very good, and it can appeal a lot -while it lasts. Unfortunately this album gets a bit forgotten after some listens, so the time challenge makes it deserve the regular three star rating for a work that is neither bad nor for the faint of heart.