Galderia
Endless Horizon

It is the third album for the French band Galderia, they seem to be releasing albums at five-year intervals with the debut coming in 2012, the second album in 2017, and this one towards the end of 2022. It is an album that has been mixed and mastered by the skilled Simone Mularoni at his Domination Studio, and it is also an album with a really cool artwork that screams power metal to everyone who is looking. Therefore, one must wonder if it is as predictable as it looks, and if it sounds as brilliant as it usually does when Mularoni is behind the buttons and knobs – well, are there any surprises here?

The answer to that is a simple no, there are nothing here that surprises me. Judging by the cover it is catchy and melodic power metal with choirs and a grand sounding style, and that is exactly what we are getting – nothing more, nothing less. The production is excellent, as expected. The songs the usual suspects, the variation is too small to make the album interesting for the entire playing time of three quarters of an hour. The vocalist is pretty average, but as he sings catchy songs you will most likely sing-along anyway. It is accessible, and presses the typical power metal buttons, listen to the opening track and you will know what this album offers.

This is one of those albums that has me a bit torn between two sides; the one that wants novelty and freshness, and the one that enjoys the simple catchiness of this album. In the end though the simple catchiness will always lose, as it is the original, the fresh, the different, the creative stuff that I return to, never that which sounds like most other stuff. There is so much power metal anyway, and I wouldn’t say that this offers anything that hasn’t already been offered by countless other bands, some of them have done it a lot better as well. That is not to say that this album is without merit as it is rather nice to listen to, the speedy songs and the energy is always pleasurable, but it is a short while as it also feels like a long album, I want it to end earlier than it does.

For power metal fans by power metal fans is probably the way to describe this, these guys like power metal and do what they like. They do it well enough to please some reviewers, and probably a decent number of fans, but with albums like this one they will never transcend outside the sphere of the hardcore fans. I listen to a few albums from most genres, and power metal is no exception to that, and I think I am not the only one doing this and that is why it hard to see that this would appeal to anyone but those really into the power metal genre. It is an easy choice, check it out if you like power metal, otherwise you don’t need to bother.

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