Today's Heavy Metal scene is, for better and for worse, influenced heavily by the past. Lots of bands are mixing the sound of older acts, maybe even borrowing a little riff here and there. I have no problem with that. Being against it would make me quite a hypocrite, as I myself love a lot of these bands. It can, however, be done in a bad way or in a good way, with integrity and charm, so you can't help but feel like something unique is created. Even if a young band is mainly putting old pieces together, if it's done in a convincing way, you'll surrender to it. When older parts are put together in a new, clever way, a sum that is bigger than its parts can be created. Some bands are masters of this.
So is, unfortunately, not the case with Celesty. Their album,
Vendetta, is a bleak repetition of all the trademarks of Euro Power Metal, without an own angle or any charm.
The band has some good ideas, several riffs work very well, and especially the keyboard sounds pretty good. The problem is both that the ideas are never fully evolved into something spectacular, and the execution itself is pretty poor.
First point of criticism is the singer,
Antti Railio. His voice is just not cut for this sort of music; it seems fragile and about to break at any point. He is not melodic enough to sound "beautiful" and not rough enough to have that "brutal" appeal that can be the saving grace of non-melodic singers.
The choirs are a chapter of their own, so much horror do they spread, and ends up as the last drop that takes the album from rather good to oh-no.
Euphoric Dream would have been pretty good with a stellar five octave vocalist and a great choir arrangement. Songs like this, where the vocals are the bearing element, calls for a stronger voice, and the singer is just not up to the challenge. The choirs are terrible!
A song like
Greed & Vanity is not that bad, it's just easily forgotten. It has no bite. The terrible choir and out of tune vocals doesn't help its cause. I get not being able to afford a full choir and orchestration, but these choir vocals almost sounds like a parody, and make me wish the band had just skipped the effort to make a huge, grandiose sound, or found another way to do it.
Like Warriors clearly shows that these guys really want to be Stratovarius, its impossible not to think of Celesty's countrymen when listening to songs like this one. Except for a pretty cool guitar lead, the song doesn't have much on offer, and better versions of this type of tune is found with lots of other similar acts.
Some of the songs are decent, like the melodic
Feared By Dawn, that even seems a little more tailored to Antti Railio's voice, he sounds pretty good here, and overall, this is a pretty good song.
Legacy Of Hate Pt. 3 is a 14 minutes epic, with a female singer joining in for a nice duet. Antti Railio even experiments a little with vocal styles, singing in a more fitting snarling, aggressive voice. Actually, they get away with this epic pretty well! It is as varied as necessary for a song this length, and has some cool parts. The slightly experimental and playful approach suits the band, and the variations in speed and atmosphere work well, intertwining the parts in a good way. The band steps a little out of their comfort zone, and delivers a decent end to the album.
Bottom line is, there are some nice moments to be found on the record, but nothing stands out or isn't easily forgotten, unless you are a very, very hardcore Euro Power Metal fan, in which case you might find something to enjoy. For everyone else, it's listening before buying.
Written by
Nina Monday, October 11, 2010
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