Mental note: never offer to support Iron Maiden!
Artiste: Edge of Thorns
Nationality: German
Album: Insomnia
Year: 2014
Label: Killer Metal
Genre: Power Metal
Tracks:
In your dreams
Dark side of your life
Yearning has begun
Insomnia
Metal unity
The Watchmaker
A caress of souls
Walking like a ghost
Death dealer
... Of hearts that burn
The 7 sins of Arthur McGregor
... Is this the way it ends?
Chronological position: Third album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: Not so much interesting as possibly dismaying: the band have been in existence since 1996, that's 18 years and have only released three albums?
Initial impression: Noddy Holder plays Metal??
Best track(s): Dark side of life, Insomnia, The Watchmaker, A caress of souls, The 7 sins of Arthur McGregor, ... Is this the way it ends?
Worst track(s): Nothing really.
Comments: Well there's an interesting child's nursery rhyme to open the album, which I think is from some horror films (but I don't watch them so can't confirm) then it seems like Slade have gone metal. No seriously: the singer sounds just like Noddy Holder. More gravelly perhaps but the similarities are definitely there. The music is heavy as hell of course; what else would you seriously expect from a German power metal band? The inevitable comparisons surface --- Helloween, Maiden, Stratovarius --- but the somewhat rawer vocals of Dirk Schmitt help EoT to stand apart from the greats and the not so greats in this often overcrowded subgenre. The two guitarists are excellent as you would expect, and this is one power metal band who will have no truck with synthesisers or keyboards, which makes them, again, that little bit rawer, gives them more of a hard edge (geddit?)
Keep your day job, Trollheart? I don't have a day job. Which is why I'm always writing this stuff. Anyway, looking down the tracklist I see two songs which are over seven minutes. This gives me pause: power metal is not always the best suited to longer, epic songs, even though most proggers would scoff at the brevity of a song that only lasts seven! But it's longer than many standard metal songs. Have they the creativity to sustain that sort of track? We shall see. The title track has a nice punchy guitar opening, but the roaring of Schmitt is wearing on me a little.
Metal unity is a bit embarrassing, lyricwise, but then, who expected it to be anything else with a title like that?
Oh, there's a guitar riff taken right out of Maiden's
The Prisoner! Oh dear. Nice acoustic opening to
The Watchmaker, the first slow track and is that violin? Also nice to hear ol' Dirk do other than roar and scream. He's a decent enough singer you know. Some very nice fretwork here too from the lads as the song ramps up about halfway through. Not quite the ballad I had expected!
Oh dear lord! Now the bass opening to
A caress of souls is ripped right out of
Rime of the Ancient Mariner! Enough already guys! You love Maiden: we get it. It even has a Maiden “Whoa-oh-oh-oh!” chorus in it! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sure, but I'd rather hear something original. This is one of those seven-minuters I was talking about earlier. To be fair it does hold the attention and it's a good song, but I can't help hearing Bruce and the boys as I listen to it. There's some fine shredding opening
Death dealer, but overall I'm not hearing anything here to mark Edge of Thorns out as anything other than just “another power metal band”.
Overall impression: Too much Iron Maiden-lite...
Hum Factor: 3
Intention: Not impressed enough to check into their other albums. Just another in a slew of “okay” power metal bands; nothing sufficient to make them stand out.