Legend of the Forgotten Reign - Chapter V: A New Era Begins

I was really not looking forward to reviewing this one - man, this is bad. Songs that go nowhere, ridiculously tepid and dry tempos, a singer as dull as they get and absolutely no fire or charisma to the playing at all. Just to give you guys a heads up, Kaledon covered “Neon Knights” on here and made it sound like lounge music. They took one of the most spirited, lively heavy metal tunes around and sucked the life out of it like they had some kind of…energy vacuum cleaner or something. If that isn’t enough to deter you, I don’t know what is.

It is just astonishing how dull this is. I kind of liked Kaledon’s previous album Twilight of the Gods a few years ago, but this one just sucks, and sucks hard at that. They apparently got a new singer, and he’s about as charismatic as a coma patient. This guy is so bland that I think he actually made the music around him less exciting just by virtue of being there. He sounds like some New Age singer; is what it is. Except he’s still really bad even by that standard, with no charisma or power to speak of. He doesn’t try to do anything with these vocal lines he’s singing. He just…sings them, in the most flat, uninteresting way imaginable.

The music is as insubstantial as they come. It says a lot when the only thing that sticks out is when you put in some goofy, diddling keyboard bit that makes the listener want to laugh more than anything. How droll the rest of this is – nothing but the most whitewashed and transparent Italian “power metal” I’ve ever heard, and I put that in quotes because it’s honestly right on the borderline. Power metal mixed with badly written new age songwriting? It isn’t even good New Age. They don’t have the conviction and frenetic energy for power metal and they don’t have the soothing atmosphere of a good New Age track…so what is left? Shit; that’s what.

I really struggled to even finish this one, as there is just so little to say about this. This is music that doesn’t make any statement, reinforce anything good about the genres it plays or incite the listener to headbang or sing along. There is no complexity to this music, no creative flare or any kind of distinction between songs – every song just plods along until the band falls asleep from their own boredom. Good grief, this is boring. How many other ways can I say it? This pile of nothing is actually flat out disgusting with how banal it is. I think I’m actually falling asleep as I write this. Excuse me.