Band:
Thomas Strübler - Vocals
Patrick Juhász - Guitar
Florian Ramsauer - Guitar
Stefan Gimpl - Bass
Manuel Schallinger - Keyboards
Martin Herzinger - Drums
Discography:
Knights of the Apocalypse : ...Nemesis EP (2005)
A Dark Enchanted Crystal Night Full-length (2006)
Links:
crystallion.net
myspace
dockyard1
The first thing that strikes me is the power metallic sounding name and fair enough a name should perhaps lead the doubtful into whatever the music they play and Crystallion can be said to be a fitting name for a power metal band like this. I could set up a checklist for what is supposed to be present in a power metal album and cross them off as some strange people on bigger magazines do, but I don’t.
It all starts with a musical non-lyrical intro with a spoken word part that is delivered in such poor English that it is laughable, but it is still in some strange, bizarre way it is quite good. Very melodic sound with speedy guitars, pounding baselines, double kicking drums and all those typical elements of the genre. High pitch singing with lyrics of heroism, wars, swords, battles and noblemen is also typical for the genre.
The fact is that Crystallion doesn’t really add anything new to the musical scene, they do what they do well; but really, do we need another high pitch vocalist singing about swords and heroes in shining armour, don’t we already have enough of that? Is it good it doesn’t really matter if it sounds like the rest but this isn’t that stand out good as this genre music needs to be for me to take a liking to it. I like the first song that follows the intro as it has an amazingly nice melodic melody that leads into the song that in the end ends up to be not as god as I was led to believe from the opening melody.
The rest of the songs go very unnoticed and the only thing I can really remember is the name Saladin that reoccurs time after time throughout the album.
I don’t like the vocals, fact is that I can hardly stand it after having this album run through twelve times, but as I now have written this down I will never again listen to this album. Musically I have nothing to complain about more than the fact that this record is remarkably dull and flat, usually there is something to joy about in a power metal album but this really has nothing.
It is a bit like a battle with Saladin to listen to this album, it is a loosing battle where your brain gets apathic by boredom and in to many listenings you will die from it. Just kidding, it isn’t really that bad, it just never takes off.
HHHHHHH