vote
7.5
- Bands:
EMBRACE OF SOULS - Duration: 01:11:31
- Available from: 03/15/2024
- Label:
-
Elevate Records
The all-Italian metal opera Embrace Of Souls reaches the second act, after a more than convincing debut and based on a skilful revival of classic European power metal, as well as on the inevitable guests who characterize the individual songs, each with their own personal baggage.
For the sequel, form and substance remain fundamentally unchanged, and this makes it clear how drummer Michele Olmi and the other permanent members have clear ideas about what they want to offer to the market, despite an important change within the line-up. up: Giacomo Voli has in fact given way to Giacomo Rossi behind the microphone, voice of Heartscore and worthy successor to his Emilian colleague, even if clearly his is only one of the voices destined to soon break into our ears.
The tracklist is even longer than the previous one – this time we are around a good seventy minutes – and, with the exception of some extracts, including the long final suite “Flashback”, what favors the variety is, precisely, the quantity of singers and guitarists selected to provide a personal imprint. We would have liked to find some other extra instrumentalists, but we believe that the package is already rich enough as it is, especially considering that we are talking about people like Adolfo Morviducci, Roberto Tiranti, Ivan Giannini, Andrea Martongelli, Michele ‘Dr. Viossy’ Vioni and others that we won’t reveal in advance, so as not to ruin the surprise.
In terms of songwriting, the general inspiration remains at levels comparable to those of the previous album, with obviously some extracts more interesting than others, such as the epic, melodic and, at the same time, very lively “My Blade Will Fall On You ”, the less intense but still evocative “For Life And Love” or even that clever mix of brightness and dark melancholy that responds to the title of “Love Sealed Forever”.
In truth, the title track also defends itself very well, as does almost the entire final part, including the more aggressive “Through The Dark” and the romantic “No One Will Divide Us”, which despite the adjective we used remains a power metal piece with all the trappings, including double bass drum and a chorus to sing at full volume and with a hand placed on the heart.
The final moments in no way betray the quality maintained up to now, so much so that we feel we can place the aforementioned closing suite among the best extracts of the package, also due to its complexity and its small peculiar finds, including blastbeats also placed in conjunction with the guitar solo by Giovanni Paolo Galeotti, which in turn precedes a sweet and meditative parenthesis, made possible thanks to the skilful use of the keyboards.
The album itself, we can say, has no defects in the true sense of the term, as much as some very slight flaws that we can mention with serenity, such as an initial “Tame My Storm” not up to the level of what is placed after it and, wanting to make a comparison with the previous work, a smaller presence of actual gems: we remember the diabolical and absurd “Welcome To My Hell”, sung mainly with a timbre not dissimilar to a black metal piece, or the ballad in Italian “Il Numero Mistico ”, which effectively closed the dance in a surprising and poetic way.
And it’s a shame to note this lesser attention to the unique parentheses, considering that instead, on the purely power metal side, we consider this album to be on a higher level than the previous one, which in some situations slightly showed the side of some small songwriting naivety.
Despite everything, the vote below is well deserved and we believe there is no reason why a lover of the genre should not approach the Embrace Of Souls project, which we believe represents an authentic, all-Italian avant-garde in the world of the most melodic and dreamy metal works.
