A bit of a strange one this, and certainly an album that needs repeated listens and a lot of attention to truly master. Italians Vultures Vengeance are aiming for the epic power metal fan with their new offering, Dust Age – Cirith Ungol, Manilla Road and Brocas Helm all find their names being dropped in the album’s accompanying press release – but, to these ears at least, the cod operatics of vocalist Tony T.Steele (hows that for a bit of nominative determinism!) place them more along a sort of Blind Guardian path if anything.
Curiously the band has loaded it’s more difficult material at the start of the record, which is very much ‘a game of two halves’ with the more immediate tracks occupying the later berths. Every track starts strongly with some great introductory riffs, although the band’s kitchen sink approach – especially on the first four songs – often finds good ideas getting swamped in the overkill.
City of a Thousand Blades, The Exile and especially the excellent The Foul Mighty Temple of Men all show a lot of skill, however, and final track It Holds, where the band really ease the speed back and allow the music to breathe a little, proves that they know what it takes to write entertaining, dramatic old school metal.
Obviously ‘less is more’ is not a concept that sits well with the general worldview of epic heavy metal bands, but I really feel that if the band could strike a happy balance between the idea-rich density of the first half of the album and the more listenable elements of the second then they really might be on to something. Band leader Steele (who also plays guitar) clearly has a vision for the band, and I certainly wouldn’t want to denigrate that, but a little tweaking might just make all the difference.
Dust Age releases on February 21st
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