When The Aurora Falls ...

The new Highlord (actually from end of 2000 it would seem, although I found out about it only lately) is a bit disappointing compared to their debut album Heir of Power. The sound and production is better but the song-writing and overall inspiration is a bit inferior. Highlord plays a typical Italian Power Metal that could be compared to their compatriots from Labyrinth. The music is heavy and fast, with a strong presence of keyboard arrangements. The keyboards adds a good plus to the songs but can also be too overwhelming from time to time. The vocals are very good although a bit too typical, I mean you could tell that the band is Italian and of course there's always this funny accent. The album contains really excellent songs like Frozen Haven and Perpetual Fury but it also contains really medium songs that you forget almost right after you've listen to them. Highlord will need an excellent third album as I don't believe that this one is strong enough to help them access the first leagues. The Power metal scene is a crowded one, and I don't think this When The Aurora Falls have enough to offer to really stand out from the rest of the typical releases of the genre. As for the packaging, the digipak version I've got is quite cool (no booklet, lyrics printed on the digipak directly) except for the logo. I already didn't like very much their logo in the first place, but on this album it really sucks as it seems the graphist used a low-res scanned version and you see all the pixels... well, it's no big deal, but why pay a Luis Royo to make an excellent drawing to then paste on it a poor looking logo ?? (I know... I'm arguing over details here ;) ). An interesting album but a bit disappointing from a band that can do much better than this if you ask me.