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Artist: Mind key |
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Well
it's been some five years since Mind Key's debut release ‘Journey Of A
Rough Diamond' and after a few comings and goings and returning band
members, it was time for the band's second album to be released,
‘Pulse For A Graveheart’. I
said there had been some comings and goings since the debut release, but
the biggest news is that Elio Fierro Jr. returns as frontman with his
Jorn Lande style vocals (always a winner in the office). He is a
real tour-de-force and together with Emanuele Colella on guitar, Dario
de Cicco on keys, Andrea Stipa on drums and completing the line-up
Raffaele Castaldo, they have created an album well worth the wait. The
album itself is a real masterpiece of Melodic Heavy Metal, a powerful
vocal infused with a great guitar virtuoso performance by Colella,
mystical keyboard wizardry from de Cicco and a titanic back beat
courtesy of Stipa and Castaldo. The
album opens up with ‘Sunset Highway’ and instantly those who
didn’t know better would swear Mr. Lande was handling the vocals, but
Fierro delivers a lot more throughout the album and this track is just
the start of something rather special. As the album continues its
powerful metal path with ‘The Seventh Seal’, again a masterful vocal
performance by Fierro, but it's the keyboards and guitars that really
make this a wonderful track. The
high quality continues with ‘Citizen Of Greed’ on which Derek
Sherinian of Dream Theater fame adds his keyboard skills to the track
with a great solo. This isn’t the only guest appearance on this
wonderful album but more of that later it on with the review. The
haunting riffs of Colella get one of my favourite tracks off the album
underway 'Crusted Memories’ is just superb, great harmonies from
Fierro mixed with some great guitar work and fantastic keyboards. The
first of two epic pieces are next, ‘Dead Fame Hunter’ is as majestic
as it is long, coming in at eight minutes dead this one is for those of
you who like a little prog mixed with you metal. Even though it's
eight minutes long it doesn’t feel that way because there’s so much
going on you forget the time and just get absorbed in this multi-layered
feast. There’s a short interlude to the metal with the guitar
only instrumental ‘Ventotene (The Island)’, a soothing track
combined with sound effect waves crashing on the shore that just make
you want to take off you shoes and take a dip into a cooling ocean. It’s
back to the metal in a big way with ‘Graveheart’, this song features
Tom Englund of Evergrey dueting with Fierro on this thunderous metal
spectacle. Then it's another of my favourites the fantastic ‘Eye
Of A Stranger’, with a blistering array of riffs from Colella on this
one, with that monster back beat of Castaldo and Stipa powering on
through. The final guest appearance is non other than Reb Beach,
who lays down the licks on the bluesy groove filled metal of ‘Now
Until Forever’, a nine-minute plus chef-d'oeuvre. The
album closes with ‘A New Generation’, a really melodic metal ballad
to end this quite superb release. Let's hope it's not five years
until album number 3 because these guys have really come up with the
goods for this album for sure. |
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Tracklisting:
1. Sunset
Highway
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