Rhapsody of Fire – The Frozen Tears of Angels (2010)

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Four years have passed since the band’s last release “Triumph or Agony”, and now they are band with a vengeance. “The Frozen Tears of Angels” is one of the band’s best albums in their whole trajectory. With the same line-up since 2002, Rhapsody of Fire has recorded what is set to be the Power Metal album of 2010. Move over Avantasia, Rhapsody is back to take the 2010 title of best Power Metal album.

Featuring their extremely symphonic sound, the band takes us inside their fantasy world with over 50 minutes of impressive musical compositions. The band’s sound is more bombastic than ever, and with their impressive array of vocal arrangements, brilliant keyboard sections, and guitar acrobatics, the band will surely please all of their fans and followers of the genre.

As you can expect, Luca Turilli’s guitar acrobatics are top notch and provide enough shredding for us to take a few weeks to digest. With such a guitar player in their ranks, Rhapsody wastes no time in showing of his skills since the first song. The solos created for this release are breathtaking and will have more than a few people scratching their heads thinking they need to practice A LOT more in order to be this good. For us, the best ‘guitar’ song in this release comes with the name of “On The Way To Ainor”.

Don’t expect this album to be all guitars (if you haven’t heard from this band before), the band does an excellent job in creating a Medieval/Fantasy atmosphere through the release. With clean god-like narrating vocals the story is outlined and then it’s beautifully unraveled by Fabio Lione’s characteristic vocals (not our top pick for Power Metal, but they are good enough). “The Frozen Tears of Angels” also over a vast variety of vocal arrangements through the album to add to the epicenes of the story that Rhapsody is telling over the nine songs in this release.

Alex Staropoli’s does a great job in creating brilliant symphonic atmosphere and ambiance that allows the band’s fantasy concept to flourish through the release. And while we wish there were ‘keyboard solos’, the overall atmosphere created is more important than this ‘showing off’ element. Rounding up the instrument mix we have very well crafted drums and a tight bass guitar track that sometimes gets drowned by the rest of the music, but is still very good.

One of the things that appealed to us the most about “The Frozen Tears of Angels” is the use of some Italian lyrics, they really add an extra dimension to the music. They also make the track “The Frozen Tears of Angels” a very dynamic and impressive song that goes for over 11 minutes of pure epicness.

The bottom line is that if you like Power Metal or Symphonic Metal, you will LOVE this release. And if you are a fan of Rhapsody, you will be greatly impressed by this album.

Band: Rhapsody of Fire Album: The Frozen Tears of Angels
Label: Nuclear Blast Records

Release: June 29th, 2010

Official Site myspace
Genre: Symphonic Power Metal

Country: Italy

Rating: 90/100
Year: 

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