Tales of the Old
The Book of Chaos

Symphonic Dark Ambient Power Metal band from Athens, Greece. The band was founded in 2010 by keyboard player Mike Tzanakis who is also the main composer and arranger of their music. The debut was an EP released in 2012, since then the band kind of died and eventually Tzanakis managed to put things together and make this debut album with a new band. The Book of Chaos as the album is called features several guests, the most prominent being Fabio Lione and Bob Katsionis. The cover certainly looks power metal and makes me think of all those similar bands within the epic and symphonic power metal genre.

I come to think of Rhapsody and many Italian symphonic bands when I listen to The Book of Chaos, but not only them, but the more bombastic Scandinavian bands also come to mind, Nightwish for example. The point I am trying to make is that listening to this album makes me think of what other bands have done rather than what this band is doing – sort of trying to place the inspirations for the songs. I cannot say that the album is particularly original, relatively varied though thanks to the appearances of several vocalists and some variations through the songs as well. The playing time is kept sensible with a playing time of just over forty minutes, and I think the production can be considered to be pretty good.

It is a good production but not a wonderful album, I find it to be strangely unimpressive. I think part of the problem is that there are so many albums released in this genre now, I have reviewed several just recently and countless over the years writing Hallowed reviews. Another part of the problem is that the album is missing one or more excellent hit songs that can draw the listener into the album, the songs are a bit too weak and too derivative to really stand out from the masses, and if you don’t stand out you don’t really exist, do you? So, that is the problem, Mike has been listening too much to his inspirations, and hasn’t really allowed his own creativity to flow.

If you like the symphonic power metal stuff it could be a good idea to check it out, there is a possibility that you will like it. But it is far from one of the better albums in the genre, that similar bands usually are better is not helping this band to achieve recognition, neither is being a caricature of the symphonic power metal style. Maybe it is the power metal equivalent of Hollywood superhero movies, excellent surface but questionable content – so if that is appealing to you the same might be true for this album.

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