After the more straight Metal and Heavy Rock album Life Among The Ruins,
Virgin Steele is back with the first Marriage part to its more sophisticated and symphonic style.
Here are the songs for you:
The
Opener I Will Come For You is everything I want from a song, a stunning and perfect piece.
Powerful vocals, deep bass thrills, moody keys and the most genius melodic break, what a divine melody coming from the lead guitar. All in all one of the most magical moments in music history!
Weeping Of The Spirits brings that special epic
Virgin Steele touch to the album, mellow acoustic guitar rhythms and symphonic keys set a great beginning. The chorus has a majestic vibe to it, brilliantly performed by David's dynamic vocal abilities and the technical drums are also a joy to listen to.
As a great variable element
Blood And Gasoline has a more direct and rocking feeling to it. The extensive and totally over the top thrilling guitar solo and the catchy refrain helps in making this a huge creation.
Last Supper put out a cool sombre mood and I find the grooving rhythm guitar approach very fitting in this song. A bit stretched out chorus line but the mid-section break suddenly gives life to a fantastic ending section, extremely progressive and unique music.
Warrior's Lament is a pearl of an instrumental track. The dramatic keyboard arrangements and melodic piano passages give way to very captivating creation.
Trail Of Tears is rather hard to describe, it has many fantastic breaks and details. A song that succeeds in sounding very fresh even after years of listening. An impressive and mesmerizing cut.
A mega VS favourite is the amazing
Forever Will I Roam. David's passionate delivering of a fascinating and mystic lyric accompanied by a soft acoustic guitar is no less than spellbinding.
The chorus is huge and extremely catchy and the mellow piano parts fit in perfectly.
I Wake Up Screaming adds some welcome force to the album, the playful guitar riffing sounds phenomenal and the double bass drum filled chorus has lost of energy to offer. A cool detail is the background keyboard that is suddenly added to the picture, it's passages like this I'm thinking about when I at the beginning said that this was sophisticated stuff.
Atmosphere is a key word when it comes to
House Of Dust, David offering some of his best and most hypnotic key arrangements. This is a ballad type of song where a most magnificent chorus line is a central aspect, and once again Edward throws in an impressive melodic solo.
Life Among The Ruins has a most driving and captivating refrain that takes no prisoners. The song has a forceful rhythm to it and it's pretty hard to sit still while this one blast through the airways.
The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell is a very symphonic and orchestral sounding instrumental piece, based on several catchy melodies. This is both striking, relaxing and marvellous music.
A few songs lack a bit behind the rest in overall quality, all being good though:
Self Crucifixion is in my opinion a rather strange and not that structured track. I like the mystic atmosphere and the outstanding guitar solo but the chorus could easily have been more dynamic or/and interesting.
The Raven Song is a cool fast song featuring intense riffs, great forceful drums and a divine guitar lead section. The verse part just becomes a bit stationary and lacking more bite.
Blood Of The Saint gains a lot by a technical and tight bass approach and the well structured underlying key passages. Anyhow the main riff is a bit standard and the chorus could also have been treated with a more melodic vibe. The album's least good song.
This is one of the most difficult and complex albums I have been introduced to when it comes to the lyrics, since I take a great deal of interest in this aspect I have found lots of challenges and also enlightening moments with this disc.
A brilliant thing is that these words can have multiple meanings, depends on "how" you read them. The style is very symbolic and has a language of its own, poetic and inspiring in a special way.
There is no straight story line on this album, but many themes are related, passionate love, religious topics and fascinating spiritualism being important elements.
The production is tight and crisp, having a great deep bass sound. If I should point at anything that could have been better then it must be the drums that could have had a more powerful sound, but that's a minor aspect.
David DeFeis' voice is as always brilliant, mesmerizing and very emotional.
Edward Pursino has a very unique guitar style, passionate and very driving and at times rocking too, his solos being top notch and some of his best. He also plays a solid and creative bass on this album.
Joey Ayvazian handles the drums with a great balance between power and skill.
This is one of the most challenging and ingenious albums I know of, both musically and lyrically.
Written by
Tommy Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Show all reviews by TommyRatingsTommy: 8.5/10Members: 8.5/10 - Average of 1 ratings.
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 | Dark Lord
Rating: 8.5/10
A great VS album; "I Will Come For You" is one of my all time favorite songs an in my opin... · Read more · |
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