A Nightmare Story is Freternia's second album following in the wake of their 2000 effort titled Warchants & Fairytales.
The style of the band is melodic and classic Power Metal, double bass drums, screaming vocals, hard guitar riffs and straight ahead tunes. The use of keyboard elements adds a detailed touch. These guys perform on a decent level, you don't get blown away but they can hold the songs together and once in a while something really cool appears. Lets take a closer look at the nine songs:
Grimbor The Great opens the show with fast paced and varied double bass drumming and heavy riffing, throw in a harmonious lick and a driving chorus line and you have yourselves a very traditional Power Metal composition, a good one though.
Arrival follows along the same broad road, the symphonic background gives the song a vivid nature, sadly enough the chorus is fairly uninspiring and the distant vocals fall flat.
The melodic voice delivery in
The Dark Side works out better and once again the illuminating keys lift the song an inch. The supporting choir lacks both roughness and power for it to become trustworthy and I'm left with mixed feelings. There is something good here but it never really develops and therefore settles as an OK song.
Shadowdancers also suffers from background choirs that lack real force; the rhythm section on the contrary has a fair amount of vigour through strong drumming and tight rhythm guitar work, the guitar solo sounds a bit thin though.
There is not much new under the sun, but I still think that a song like
The Saviour can be labelled as successful. Here the catchy chorus works well and the cool change in pace gives it a smooth flow.
We are offered a cool technical guitar solo, a catchy refrain and the massive bass gives it a bombastic profile.
The harmonious piano passages and dynamic lead guitar intermission are some of the better working aspects in
The Unexpected. On the other hand the main rhythm is very standard and it just never really becomes interesting.
New Hope sees a cool collaboration between bright keys and a groovy rhythm section, vocally I appreciate the varied style but I must add that I'm also missing a cleaner result in the verse parts, this occurs once in a while through the album. Anyway this is a good song and the grand key solo is fittingly squished in.
The mid-tempo driven
Battle Of Minds is suffering from the well know problem of something memorable, sure the structure is varied but that doesn't make it good by itself, the problem is that the song lacks a genuine idea and something that binds it together.
The album ends with the slow
Requiem, containing a well functioning mellow mood and a quite intriguing build-up.
The production is reasonably good, the bass is hidden too far in the mix but overall the sound has bite and nerve to it.
Lyrically the result is quite standard in both quality and theme-wise, a fantasy concept dealing with the fight between good and evil and a person trying to find his own way in difficult times.
Overall an album that is pretty straight ahead, at times it works but more diversity could have made it more dynamic and coherent.
It is not that there are any directly bad songs on the record, I just think it has a shortage of really great melodies and exciting parts; overall it comes in as an OK album with many decent songs.
Written by
Tommy Saturday, March 5, 2005
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