Emerald Sun
Metal Dome

Well, there are many things in the world of music that are a many surprises and I think the strangest one is the fact that so few musicians seem to have any kind of creative thinking – or individuality for that matter. This is one of those bands; they are either a decade too late or some time too early as this kind of power metal is way out of fashion these days. The staple clichés all around on this album, look at the album title, their discography and the songs, I think you can find any of the magic words of power metal there, they seem not to miss any of them. Dreary looking cover artwork on this, the band’s third album – a Greek band who’s story begun just as the story of the power metal ended.

Power metal, catchy choruses, many melodies, fast paced music and all those clichés that seem to be bound to follow band that adhere to the paint-by-numbers scheme that can be this genre by some. If you are looking for novelty there is none. There are no surprises and it feels like they are just borrowing their ideas from already established bands and albums I listened to when we started Hallowed as a printed magazine over a decade ago. A dozen tracks containing more or less any cliché these bands tend to use, the Freedom Call, Vlood on the name, No More Fear, Destiny, Metal, Won’t Break Me, Legacy and such things. Isn’t it strange how people doing a creative thing like music can be so uncreative in their creative processes.

I think that this is a good album, the songs are catchy and sing-along friendly. Good energy and a positive attitude is always a treat for the nostalgic heart, one can recall the times we did write for the printed magazine, a time of ideas and creativity that I think we have somewhat lost by becoming more productive. But it is not about how catchy or how much it reminds of times long gone, perhaps better times but probably not, it is the quality and the relevancy of an album that determines the rating on our scale. And to be completely honest, the fail miserably on the relevancy scale considering that the world can both have and be without Emerald Sun and their latest offering – it is a rather irrelevant album in the grand scheme of things. The quality is much better than the relevancy, I like the album it is good. However, it is not the top of the line here and it does sound about a decade dated and that is not too positive – I never like albums feeling out of time in that regard. It is however a rather entertaining album so I’d say it is good but it isn’t really of any consequence and anyone will forget it as soon as that anyone stops listening to it. I have placed it amongst all those other CDs that I have received from labels that I will never ever play again – they will be collecting dust somewhere out of sight.

There is one memorable thing though, the chorus of Freedom Call, the fourth track, which is excellent and catchy – I really like that one and will recall that for at least some time now that I have stopped listening to this album. The title track however, it has to be the worst title track of any power metal album I have heard in a long time except for the one on the Avoral album because that was awful. So in the end I thin you won’t be disappointed if you buy this album but at the same time you won’t be overjoyed either, it is a good power metal album but it is a decade or so too late to be really relevant.

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