Italian Crystal Empire present themselves to metal people with their debut demo 'Lord of Illusions'. Packed under fantasy painter Keith Parkinson's beautiful Tolkien-inspired artwork, the expectations are high, especially with Mikki with who this review was done with.

Crystal Empire did not let themselves easily at all with this demo. Long compositions are filled with many different styles, that might give grey hairs even to professional musicians. Generally, the band's style is Italian power metal. There's an immediate Rhapsody resemblance throughout the demo, especially in choruses sung by the whole band. Neo-classical and progressive metal elements bring in variety, but they do not fit seamlessly into compositions which badly lack of wholeness. Despite the variety, the songs still feel way too long and in worst cases, there's not much happening. Even though the band took their name from the Freedom Call album, this doesn't sound very much like that German band.

The band's performance is good enough instrumental-wise. Worst thing is some toy-ish sounding synthesizers, but no other complaints are needed. Vocals, however, are quite bad, thanks to vocalist's too big enthusiasm. He ends up "baaing" and "maaing" throughout the album. He just doesn't keep within the borders of his voice. Best performance from him can be hear on calmer parts of 'Raise Your Flag'. Then again, its chorus is horrible. At times he sounds a bit like Manilla Road's Mark Shelton, but pales by comparison. The sound is on demo-level, lacking of power yet every element is audible.

Crystal Empire's debut is a brave one, but they have taken too big bite for the first presentation. Lacking skills of genre leaders, Crystal Empire end up sounding a c-class power metal band from Italy, we're afraid. One for Italian power metal fans, who can't get enough of it.

Reviewed by Mikki & Lane
08/08/2005 13:11