Phantom Lord... They must be bashing out some good ol' school thrash metal, right?! Well, no, not this Greek band anyway. They aren't an unknown band, 'Imperial Fall' being their fourth full length album, and they've shared the stage with such giants as Iron Maiden. They started as a cover band playing Maiden and Judas Priest songs among others. For me, this album was another cheapo finding, and I had to judge it by a single mp3 heard via the net... 'Timeline' is the song in question, and it can be heard on Sleaszy Rider Records' website. Did it hook me bad? Yeah, bloody hell it did! The album's boring cover artwork made me think whether I should pick this one up at all, but eventually I did.
The Phantom Lord band in question perform power metal with heavy metal and neoclassical influences. It is pretty easy to outline the borders wherein the band's sound lays: North American bands Jag Panzer and Symphony X, occasionally bowing towards Germans Helloween. Pretty surprising, when thinking of whose songs they covered in their past. Well, 'Digital Resolution' owes something to Judas Priest... The title track is a powerful piece tangling fantastic melodies, speed metal riffage, fast double kick drumming and varying vocals. 'Stellar Forge' is a slower song, but doesn't lack of catchiness, because it goes to show the band members' abilities to work with subtler elements. 'Double Cage' hits the heavier gear, but ends up as a bland-ish song; it simply doesn't contain enough of that awesome playing and riffage, that's heard on it only occasionally. Almost the total lack of ideas, which is called 'Illusion of the Mirror', makes me want to push the forward button, so boring and bland a song it is! There's really nothing remarkable on it, except for some high-pitched vocals, while the music itself goes in from one ear and comes out from the other, leaving no memory traces. The decision to skip 'Illusion...' is made easy because of the next one, 'Timeline', which is absolutely epic, slow piece of precious metal indeed.
And what possibly can appease me after that? Definitely not the baroque style of 'Break of Dawn'... But gladly the song begins to congregate other elements into it, too, so the beginning's blatant baroque tinklings are over soon. 'Black Horizon' glides over some great lead guitar work. At least at times, because it floats into proggy tempo changes, which aggressively take the song to pieces. Why on Earth didn't the band write a straight "hit" song for a change? 'Holy Experiment' is the second really unnoticed song on the album. Feels like it completely misses the ardent fire to make metal music. Heavy, even shredding 'Digital Resolution' is that sought after straight song, but it can't hold its good drive all the way through, thanks to lame vocal melodies. 'Mirage' struggles to be good, but succeeds only partly, slowly but surely drifting into dullness. 'Inside' is, not surprisingly, a balladish piece which is finely performed, but lacks of feelings.
I like the band's performance, as it is competent on every level. The vocals remind me heavily of Jag Panzer's Harry "The Tyrant" Conklin, with some heavy vibration added (how about Edguy's Tobias Sammet?!). I needed some time to get into them, thanks to that vibration, but the vocalist is capable of singing both low and high notes. Operatic backing vocals from a lady duo work well with male voice. Sound-wise this is pretty kicking, thanks to the tubby lower end. It's not perfectly clean, but still the instruments are audible in the mix. Something I don't like are the triggered drums. They sound too artificial in otherwise warm soundscape. Lyrics, that portray life and future of the mankind are OK, but surely not as deep or trivial as the prefaces in the lyrics may make one think.
Phantom Lord's music can be remarkable, but also incompetent, and that's exactly what this album shows. Surely, it is almost pointless to wait to hear anything new or unique nowadays, and I never did when picking up 'Imperial Fall'. Still I feel disappointed with this album, because whenever listening to it, it is more than obvious that the band was able to write magnificent metal music and perform it graciously. The performance is good, but majority of the music lacks soul and is uneventful. I tried so hard to like this, but eventually I had to give up and count on my feelings: 'Imperial Fall' is simply dull for a big part. The title of the album doesn't quite describe the music on it, but too close, too close... Definitely not the sum of its parts.
Rating: 5½ (out of 10) ratings explained
Reviewed by Lane
11/04/2008 17:44
