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Artist: Sons Of Seasons |
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If
you're familiar with the bands Kamelot, Doro Pesch and Blaze Bayley,
then the name of Oliver Palotai will be no stranger and the keyboard wiz
producer, multi-talented musician and composer’s prowess will also be
well known, although the name of Sons Of Seasons may not be, but believe
me it soon will be. Sons
of Seasons is a band set up by Palotai in 2007 who enlisted the talents
of Daniel Schild, and Luca Princiotta, who were at one time with Palotai
in Blaze Bayley’s band, but due to management wrangling left that
band. This trio were soon re-unite and brought in new blood in the
form of bass player Jurgen
Steinmetz to complete the band line-up. The band then needed a
vocalist and in stepped Tijs Vanneste, only sadly due to the bands
touring commitments Vanneste couldn’t commit to the band, so Palotai
sought out the talent of Metalium frontman Henning Basse to fill the
vacant frontman slot and so the band was complete. With
this new band and debut album Palotai has taken his love of Metal and
Classical music and mixed the two genres together in a powerful entity,
with just a touch of jazz-fusion thrown in for good measure. The
album opens up in quite emphatic style with ‘The Place Where I Hide’
with Palotai’s keyboards getting things underway. The album may
be described as Dark Symphonic Metal, but it is so much more than that.
There is a grace and power behind each track and as the album opens up
properly with the excellent title track ‘Gods Of Vermin’, a track
which features Basse’s mighty towering overtures and some great
elevated guitars and keys, this is a great track that sets the standard
for the rest of the album. This
high standard is maintained not only with the next track ‘A Blind
Man’s Resolution’, again featuring a powerful vocal from Basse while
retaining that Symphonic feel to proceedings, but it's the rhythm
section that really stamps their mark on the album with some huge bass
and drums lines. Another fine METAL track that's also one of my
personal favourites off the entire album, simply because of its powerful
feel. ‘Fallen
Family’ is another really heavy track which just powers on through and
is the first track to feature the guest vocals of one Simone Simons,
who's contrasting majestic vocals are the perfect back up for Basses
frantic metal style. This also allows Palotai to unleash those
magic fingers to great effect as the keyboards unite with the vocal
pairing in perfect unity. Well
we're almost midway through the album and to say I’m impressed is an
understatement. The album takes a more mellower refrain for ‘The
Piper’, which is where Basse shows us that he also has a melodic
side to his vocal range. This really is a rather splendid Metal
Ballad. Things
keep to the more gentle refrain for ‘Wheel Of Guilt’ before the pace
is picked up once more with the excellent ‘Belials Tower’. A
massive attack of drums and bass with driven guitars taking this one
over the edge of metal hell and back again. This is also one of
Basse’s finest vocal performances on the album. It's
time for that little Metal/Jazz fusion with the intro to ‘Fall Of
Byzanz’, a really mixed bag this one that shows the diversity Palotai
wanted for this band in abundance. Then it's the quite beautiful
‘Wintersmith’, which once again sees Simone Simon’s duetting with
Basse on a song that reminds me very much of the Kamelot track ‘The
Haunting’, which isn’t a bad thing at all. It's back to the more aggressive metal feel with Dead Man’s Shadows’ and the superb ‘Sanatorium Song’ before the album closes as it opens in emphatic style with ‘Third Moon Rising’, which rounds off a great debut album from the band. This album showcases the talents of both Palotai as well as the rest of the band perfectly and a must buy for all fans of great musicianship as this one has it in bucketloads.
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Tracklisting:
1. The Place Where I
Hide
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All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated. |
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