Royal Quest
The Tale of Man

Greeks of Royal Quest tell us the tale of man, a story told in musical form as a metal opera with several voices telling the stories accompanied by music. Name, cover and title is a clear indication of what to expect from this album, I think that if you are a bit knowledgeable within the metal genre you too will know what to expect. There are no surprises. Well, the surprise might be that they have waited for quite a while before releasing this debut album, the band was formed all the way back in 1998 – sometimes it take a while it seems. What prompt these delays is not anything I know, I have not researched this band very much as I don’t really have the time to do that with every band I review and some bands do motivate more research than others.

This band doesn’t surprise when it comes to the musical side of things, it is power metal with symphonic undertones, a band who wish they are Luca Turilli, Rhapsody, Avantasia, Symphony X, and whatever else in the European power metal you can think of. Many melodies, different voices telling the stories – most voices are not that good but the female ones are very agreeable I think. Decent variation but the album is well clear of the one hour mark, that is a bit on the long side considering that the album is very predictable and the band shamelessly borrow parts of other songs. One cannot claim that these guys have much musical imagination; maybe they borrow too heavily from their influences thus forgetting to forge an own identity.

What can I say; it doesn’t really float my boat. The drama isn’t that captivating, and the spoken word parts sucks big time. Maybe they were too ambitious with the story? The Tale of Man might be too much; maybe they should have focused on one chapter on one album rather than a whole story that requires much more time to be told. But it isn’t just the story it is the entire thing, it is too predictable, the singers are not good enough, the story isn’t told in an interesting enough way and unlike the great metal operas like Avantasia or Ayreon it also lacks personality – completely lacks it. It is like they have pieced together pieces from other bands and songs and created this, it is an ambitious product but they don’t really manage to make the result such a product would need to please today’s music audience. And if you think that it is only my critical mind that believes so, read the interweb reviews and you’ll find that I am not alone in my doubts about this album.

Nothing really stands out for me on this album, fans of Euro-power metal will find it quite okay but I doubt that even they will hold in very high esteem. Maybe they should rather have focused on finding their own voice, to me it is just as annoying as Pepper and you just want it to end.

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