Holy Knights - Between Daylight and Pain (2012)

Returning after a 10 year absence, today we have Italy’s Holy Knights and their very exciting release “Between Daylight and Pain”. In case you thought that there aren’t enough Power Metal bands, Holy Knights returns to deliver eight tracks that are indeed very well crafted, but sound like a ‘light’ version of Rhapsody and similar bands.

Since the rich opener “Mistery”, the band immediately sends the message that they have great musicians, excellent production values, and solid composition skills. The bombastic elements of their songs remind us a lot of Rhapsody of Fire and their explosiveness when it comes to symphonic elements. The vocals of Dario Di Matteo remind us a bit of Fabio Leone, making them actually quite good in our book. The first few songs deliver quite a hectic pace and very well crafted guitar solos like on “Beyond the Mist”, but it is the melodic sections that make this song (and release) more appealing than your average Power Metal release.

The somber piano opening of “11 September” makes this one of our favorite tracks of the release, and provides a nice change of pace, until all hell breaks loose with virtuoso guitar and keyboard performances as the song progresses. Some medieval/folky undertones are detected in songs like “Glass Room” and “Wasted Time”, but they never overpower the band’s core sound and allow the release to nicely flow from start to end. However, “Awake” does have that folk/medieval vibe that we can’t really get into, but it is well crafted and delivered.

Closing with the somewhat weird and experimental “The Turning to the Madness”, we think that the band completely went overboard and tried to be overly ambitious. While the song is challenging and very different, it feels like a ‘composition masturbation’ exercise that should have been left off the release and on a jamming session. Other than this little hiccup, “Between Daylight and Pain” is one heck of a release that has pretty epic songs that are both well-crafted and engaging. If you are a fan of traditional Power Metal, then this is the release for you.

Release: October 2nd,2012

Genre: Power Metal

Country: Italy