Winterage
The Inheritance of Beauty

When I first saw the cover of this album in my music playlist I thought that it was some Italian over the top symphonic metal band, what else could it be? Probably nothing, considering that I guessed correctly. It is their second album, the first arrived in 2015, and it contains orchestras, choirs, and lots of people, a big and grand production – but a really poor cover art. It is always interesting with the Italians and their symphonic metal, it can be great or it can be ridiculously over the top, a band like Rhapsody (of Fire) illustrates this pretty well with some fantastic songs and some equally awful ones. Add to that the silly themes they often have with magical warrior and silliness like that.

I think mentioned Rhapsody is a pretty good reference for how this sounds, Italian symphonic metal overall. With grand arrangements, big choirs, bombastic stuff, it is easy to be impressed with the music. But the arrangement takes most attention and when you start looking at the songs, they feel a bit incoherent and the album lacks structure, the 62-minute playing time feels a bit over the top as well. The fact is that this whole album feels a bit over the top, and not in a good way.

Lots of grand arrangements and choirs, but less of substance and less good songs makes this a pretty unentertaining album. I find that I want less choirs and more voice in the vocals, I want less orchestra and more direction in the songs – I actually think that less is more, and it is very true in this case that more is a lot less. Lots of surface but not anything that gets me going, I feel like this is the worst of Rhapsody combined into a single package. Sure, it isn’t without some impressive and noteworthy things, but no song is good in its entirety and it feels more like a chore than something enjoyable to listen through this album. That can’t be right, it should be joyous to listen to music or enjoy culture in general, if it is arduous there must be something that isn’t quite right, almost a bit embarrassing.

Too much! That is how I see this album, too much of everything. You kind of see from the cover that this album will be ridiculously over the top, you know it from the name, and the pictures of the band, it is just obvious even before you listen to this album – and then when you actually listen it just confirms what you though from the beginning. I find this to be a rather boring album, and it is hard to see the validity of it – who will buy it? Fans of symphonic metal and judging by reviews there are some that will like it but people who aren’t taken with everything they hear will find this album to be a complete waste of time. It is fun that they mix in some Italian in the words, but this album is so dull that I usually turn it off well before that obligatory and needlessly long excuse for an epic song that ends the album.

HHHHHHH