Review Summary: A good power metal album. Melodic, clear vocals and good guitar creates a great overall variety. The only thing that is missing is some energy.
Power metal (or Slay-Dragon-Save-Princess metal as I like to call it sometimes) is probably one of metals mellowest genres. If you would play power metal in a mall people wouldn’t bother but if you would play black metal for example then people would have a different reaction. I like power metal but I think that power metal bands tend to sound so incredibly similar to each other. Of I want to listen to power metal then I would listen to some special, like
Nightwish for example. But one day when I was searching stuff in my computer I suddenly saw that I had a
Falconer album! I knew that they were Swedish and that they played power metal so I thought I could listen it through. Well,
Falconer definitely plays power metal and I thought that they were not a special band. Even if people have criticized them to be a band that stands out just a bit of the power metal crowd I still don’t agree. The reason why
Falconer stands out is mostly because of the vocalist, the guitarist
Stefan Weinerhall (ex member of the black metal band
Mithotyn), and the mix between power metal and folk influences in the music.
Chapters From A Vale Forlorn is the name of the album I found. It was released in 2002 and it is the band’s second full-length album. This album has a good and even great variety in basically everything, the only question is if you like the music or not. Here we have a great song variety, we got some fast, catchy and almost ‘’classic structured’’ songs like
Decadence Of Dignity and
For Life And Liberty. We have some slower but somewhat heavier tracks like
The Clarion Call and
Enter The Glade. There are also some tracks here that has some nice folk influences too,
Lament Of A Minstrel,
Stand In Veneration and
We Sold Our Homesteads would be three good examples. And then we also have an atmospheric ballad here called
Portals Of Life.
Mathias Blad is a vocalist and a keyboardist. He has a good power metal voice, very clear and it is not too yell, loud etc. People say that he has a mid-ranged vocal style, what it means I don’t know but he is a good singer. I still think that his vocals are somewhat weak, it doesn’t sound bad at all but I think that his voice doesn’t add so much to the music.
Stefan Weinerhall plays both guitar and bass in this album and he delivers a very good performance. The guitar stands out thanks to the somewhat technical but varied riff structures and the bass provides a good sound that backs up the guitars. Most riffs are pretty simplistic and melodic but also heavy at times, we have some catchy ‘’galloping’’ riffs and most guitar solos are technical, high-pitched and melodic.
Karsten Larsson is the drummer and his performance level is in the same height as the other members. Here we have some drum patterns that are typical in the power metal genre. There are many catchy drum patterns and double bass kicking, this is not a complex or highly technical drum performance. In this album we also encounter some other instruments as well, we have some flutes, violins and piano that are scattered throughout the material.
That should be enough, this was not a bad album but it wasn’t a really great album either. I liked almost everything but I thought that the album had a somewhat low energy album. There were of course some songs with good energy but I still think that the album wasn’t so ‘’exciting’’. This is an album that you don’t need to have; I will though recommend it to people who are deep into power metal. If you like power metal with fantasy themes and such you will probably enjoy this album. If you like power metal then you should get into, if not, let it be.
Positives
+ Good vocals (especially in
Portals Of Life)
+ Good guitars
+ Nice mix with the folk instruments
+ Very good song variety
Negatives
- The album doesn’t have a good energy level, the album felt too calm
- The vocals could’ve been a bit louder and or powerful
Recommended Favourites
-- Portals Of Life
-- The Clarion Call
-- For Life And Liberty
This album will be given a 3/5.
