Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Review by Warren Mayocchi
This is exciting, new music from a one of the pioneers of modern symphonic metal. Here is the second album from Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody showing why they like to be called cinematic metal nowadays. Cinematic on this album means that the the symphonic elements are expressed more extremely, that on occasion you can imagine the songs being taken from the soundtrack of a bombastic musical, that there are tributes to products of the cinema. Vocals tend toward the operatic with clean male and female solo voices, choirs, and occasional spoken phrases.
When it succeeds the album is brilliant. The opening of “Anahata” reminds me of the Star Trek theme before the song boldly seeks out new stylistic frontiers. It is an extremely interesting song with many musical changes and it is my favourite track. “One Ring to Rule Them All” begins with a Gollum-like voice that returns mid-song with a call to “my precious”. Yes, the song is an obvious tribute to The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings and it works well. Another favourite song is “Il Cigno Nero” which is a piano and power metal duet. Most songs have a chanting choir with solo almost-operatic vocalist style that generally works well. Combined with dominating symphonic elements, metal rhythm/drums and piercing guitar soloing the mix is dynamic and song writing is tight. Everything fits together beautifully. However, at times the opera-like style is overdone. This is the case on “Rosenkreuz (The Rose and the Cross)”, but others may disagree – particularly since the song was selected to be made into a video. Watching the video you will notice an excellent introduction to the song which does work well – however most of that introduction was created exclusively for the video and is not included on the album version.
The music on “Prometheus – Symphonia Ignis Divinus” came across as wonderfully indulgent or pretentiously overconfident. On balance I do quite like the album – it is an experience to embrace with a heroic heart. Though there are moments that burn too brightly, it is worth delving into the divine fire to find the epic songs that Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody have created.
Rating – 83/100
Tracklist
- Nova Genesis (Ad Splendorem Angeli Triumphantis)
- Il cigno nero
- Rosenkreuz (The Rose and the Cross)
- Anahata
- Il tempo degli dei
- One Ring to Rule Them All
- Notturno
- Prometheus
- King Solomon and the 72 Names of God
- Yggdrasil
- Of Michael the Archangel and Lucifer’s Fall Part II: Codex Nemesis – I. Codex Nemesis Alpha Omega; II. Symphonia Ignis Divinus (The Quantum Gate Revealed); III. The Astral Convergence; IV. The Divine Fire Of The Archangel; V. Of Psyche And Archetypes (System Overloaded)
Line Up
- Alessandro Conti – Lead vocals
- Ralf Scheepers – Co-lead vocals on “Thundersteel” (Guest)
- David Readman – Vocals (Guest)
- Dan Lucas – Vocals (Guest)
- Bridget Fogle – Vocals (Session)
- Emilie Ragni – Vocals (Session)
- Luca Turilli – Guitar, keyboards, orchestral arrangements, producer, engineer, cover concept
- Dominique Leurquin – Guitar
- Patrice Guers – Bass
- Alex Landenburg – Drums
Links
http://www.facebook.com/ltrhapsody
https://www.youtube.com/user/ltrhapsody