Evil Masquerade musically cover the middle ground
between Power Metal and Neo Classical. Featuring the powerful
vocals of Henrik Brockmann (ex Royal Hunt) and ably backed
up by Henrik Flyman (guitars), Kasper Gram (bass) and Dennis
Buhl (drums), the sound of the band is backed up by a powerful
production courtesy of Steen Morgensen (Royal Hunt / Cornerstone)
and also features guest keyboardists Richard Anderson (of
Time Requiem), Mats Olausson (Ex Malmsteen) and Royal Hunt
keysman André Andersson.
The cast of characters certainly shows promise,
and for the most part this is a solid album. There are certainly
no faults to be found in the first 4 tracks which cover the
Power Metal meeting Neo-Classical ground with ease.
The title track, The Wind
Will Rise and Oh Harlequin
are home to superb choruses and frantic deliveries from all
involved. Richard Andersson and André Andersen both
crop up on The Wind Will Rise and their keyboard prowess adds
a lot to this track.
Throughtout alot of the track we get adaptations
of classical pieces by Wagner, JS Bach and Mozart which although
not in the way Yngwie would do these things do add a nice
theatrical quality to the music. Surpises
In The Dark (home to the guest appearance of Mats Olausson)
begins with a quote of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. This track
is home to a quite eerie vocal delivery from Brockmann, the
chorus is sure to appeal to fans of Rhapsody and overall its
another good track.
Sadly the album tends to loose momentum from here
on in. Too many of the tracks that follow sound like the blue
print for power metal and these tracks don't posses the more
individual quality of earlier tracks. What you can expect
is the fast double bass drum approach, the backed up big choruses
and wailing guitars. Yes the energy levels is high, they just
don't have the impact that makes The Wind Will Rise and Oh
Harlequin such good listening.
Welcome To The Show is an album that showed a
lot of promise. If the quality of song had been like those
of the opening four this would have been a vital release.
This then leads to two options, view this album as a mini
album, or let the tracks further on in the listening slightly
bring the quality down, the choice is yours. My personal rating
of this album reflects more my enjoyment of the opening tracks,
yet has seen marks docked for the others.
Overall, this band do look like they could bloom into an original
package and hopefully the next release will see this realised.
