Labÿrinth
Welcome to the Absurd Circus

They are one of the early power metallers from Italy, the debut came already in 1996 and since then they have made several albums. They may be one of the more influential bands from Italy, but I have never really thought they were one of the best. They have done good stuff though so with the promise of an absurd circus it wouldn’t be completely misplaced to hope for an album with fresh ideas and some absurd ideas – Italian bands are usually quite good at being a bit outrageous, so maybe Olaf and co are as well.

This album is a power metal album, with songs that are quite typical of the genre – they also cover Ultravox. The sound is pretty modern, the singer pretty good, it is a solid production. There is nothing circus or absurd about it, it is quite ordinary in terms of style. The songs are eleven, and besides a cover there isn’t anything surprising about those songs, they are the expected variety. The album is a bit long with a playing time that reaches past the hour, I think that is a bit too much – especially since there isn’t much variation in throughout the songs.

Surprisingly dull, that has been my impression since I first listened to this album. The only good song is the cover, I wonder if that can be interpreted as something when the cover is the only song of value while the band’s own compositions are mediocre. It just isn’t an album that makes much a strong impression on me as a listener, and I think albums needs to provide novelty and greatness to be worthy of attention – this album gives us neither of that, just tame and mediocre power metal of a kind that we have heard to death already. I itself it is difficult to point at any particular weakness, the production itself is fine and everything, the songs are awful either, but it is an album that fails to impress in any regard.

Both cover and content are below par and I don’t see any point in wasting time on this release, there are just so many better choices out there. I think it is a surprisingly bad album, Italian rockers are usually over the top, interesting, sometimes really bad, but rarely boring like this one. No, I think you should look elsewhere as this mediocre and pointless album will not make you happy.

 

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