Title: Key to the Kingdom
Artist: Triaxis
Year: 2009
Genre: Heavy Metal
Nationality: Welsh
Discography: Three albums, one EP
Position in discography: First (debut) album
First of all, let's get one thing straight: this ain't Power Metal. Firstly, there are no keyboards. No. None. No keyboards at all. What's a PM band without keys, huh? Secondly, the sound the band appear to be going for is more Iron Maiden-lite than Stratovarius, Blind Guardian or any other Power Metal band you wish to name. It's a pity the new vocalist isn't on this, if only for her name: Angel Wolf-Black! Seriously. Well, it's not her real surname, but that's unpronounceable, for me anyway. They also later recruited a female bassist, but again she's not here. The singer we do get is Krissie Kirby, and I'd say she's up to the job, but really nothing special, as MicShazam pointed out.
My other main gripe with this album - I think it's actually quite decent - is that the tracks are generally too long. Only one under five minutes, and the closer is almost eight. That's not a problem,
per se, but these songs frankly aren't good enough to be stretched to lengths like that. They're ok, but a little pedestrian. 3-4 minutes would have been better. There's some good guitar work, but it's hard not to see the ghost of Smith, Murray and even Gers here in nearly every solo or extended instrumental part.
Do we get the obligatory ballad? Yeah, the last one, also the longest, "The King and the Geisha" (what?) is their slow song. It's decent enough I guess and a good closer. Okay, i posted this before I had finished listening to it, and it seems it speeds up halfway but, you know, I don't care. Again, eleven tracks for an album that just is not that interesting is too long, and it becomes a bit of a slog to get through the whole thing. Does it change much/any over the course of those eleven tracks? Hmm, seems not. I thought for a moment there "Lord of the Northern Sky" was going to be something different, but it quickly devolved into just another pumping metal track. Yawn.
This is their debut so maybe they got better, dropped the Maiden influences and struck out for their own signature sound, or at least some sort of individuality, but I'm not impressed enough to check any further. It's a good album, but that's about it really. Oh dear: even the start of "Submission" is basically ripped off from "Out of the Silent Planet". Sigh.
It's okay as an album, just nothing that I haven't heard before, and not an album I'll be telling you you need to listen to. Cos, you know, you don't.
