Wind Rose – Shadows Over Lothadruin (2012)

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If you first read that this was produced by Cristiano Bertocchi (Labyrinth) and mastered by Goran Finnberg (Opeth) this Italian band, Wind Rose, will immediately have your attention and your criticism level would go up a few degrees. Luckily for everybody, the band delivers very well crafted melodies that dance around the area of bands like Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, etc, and their mixtures of fantasy/medieval elements with Power/Progressive Metal. With fifteen songs in “Shadows Over Lothadruin” this new band showcases their musical abilities with a very nicely flowing and epic feeling release.

First thing that annoyed us a bit is that all SEVEN of the instrumental tracks are standalone songs rather than being incorporated into the previous or following track, we don’t really need a count of 15 songs when you really have eight. Peskiness aside, this does not really affect the release in any sense but it is a picky thing from our side (and some of our readers we have heard). “The Endless Prophecy” marks the album’s first real track and has a very playful feeling to it, while keeping all the requirements of an excellent Progressive/Power Metal song: killer vocal arrangements, solid drumming and crazy guitar work. “Siderion” follows in the same vibe, but the song does have a familiar ‘medieval’ feeling to it that feels like it was taken from somewhere else.

By the time “Sons of A Thousand Nights” rolls in, we notice that while Francesco Fagiolini is a decent vocalist, he sure uses a lot of backing vocals in the first few tracks. In this ballad-esque track he also fails to really make an impression as ‘good’ vocalist, but thankfully the band makes up for it with a lot of different backing vocals. The guitar solo here is pretty ok, but you can see the ‘amateur’ feeling that it was given, showing that the band still needs a few more years to really blossom into a Vision Divine/Rhapsody of Fire caliber outfit.

Tracks like “The Fourth Vanguard” and “Oath to Betray” are excellent tracks that feature Francesco coming out of his shell a bit more, and really sounding bad. His range is not as good as he expects, making the some of the tracks sound pretty amateur-ish. The guitar and keyboard solos on “Oath to Betray” are pretty intense, but the rest of the band fails to create a captivating moment and give them space to shine. Little details like these bring down the band a bit since it shows they are still young and need a few years more before they can blow everybody away.

As we mentioned before Wind Rose has the chops to write solid tracks, but it misses a few times in terms of the delivery. The band’s vocalist is one of the weak links, and their excessive use of backing vocals covers it at first, but not for too long. The band also needs to work a bit more in creating better sections for their solos and rely less on the atmospheric elements of their instrumentals that sound way better recorded than their ‘regular’ songs. Going with caution, the listener will find  a very enjoyable first release of a young an promising band, so this album might not be such a bad addition to everybody’s collection.

P.S. It might be an issue with the promo we received, but the cymbals ‘swish’ way to much making them sound very wobbly, while some people use this as an effect, we find it quite annoying or a compression artifact, so hopefully the final product does not feature this.

Band: Wind Rose Album: Shadows Over Lothadruin
Label: Bakerteam Records

Release: August 28th, 2012

Oficial Site myspace

Genre: Power/ Progressive Metal

Country: Italy

Rating: 85/100
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