Fairytales of Darkness

Austria only occasionally produces flashes of metal greatness (Korova, Disharmonic Orchestra, Pungent Stench, Abigor) so it’s quite easy for one to forget about its presence on the scene for a large portion of the time. Our friends here sprang up at the start of the 90’s, but they spent the decade so deep underground that literally nothing came out of their camp. They survived long enough, though, to see the dawn of a whole new millennium, and respectively a new decade. “No more counter-productive toilings in the underground”, was the new motto, and inspired by it the guys quickly assembled the debut, a rousing slab of old school power/speed metal hymns modelled after the heroic achievements of the 80’s German movement (think Scanner, above all).

They couldn’t have selected their official release initiation any more appropriately as the 00’s were a most ample ground for all kinds of retro metal heroics, and the band wasted no time enhancing their reputation with the album reviewed here which appeared less than a year after the first coming. The delivery was pretty much the same, classic power/speed metal of the optimistic “eagle fly free” variety, with Scanner again the main target for worship the guys finding the perfect balance between the Germans’ earlier, speedier (the 80’s) and their later, more power metal-fixated (1995-97) period.

With an excellent attached emotional performer behind the mike things by all means sound even more appealing, and the listener can delve into this goodness with no second thoughts, jumping left and right on fast-paced delights like “Fairy of Darkness” and “Heart of Dragonsteel”, the great memorable sing-along choruses on those vintage later-period Scanner. Interestingly enough, the slower material is the one that carries an angrier, thrash-peppered charge (“The Hunter”), but there’s no danger for this recording to turn into a more brutal beast “Dream of the Mountain” pacifying the setting with its nice epic semi-balladic layout, another throw-in in the same more laid-back direction being the more boisterous “Valhalla” where a couple of gorgeous melodic hooks will take your breath away. Bigger ambition is displayed on several longer compositions (“Miracle”, “Phantom of The Opera”) on which the shadow of Manticora and the Polish Hellfire can be clearly felt with the wider array of nuances and riff-patterns, the guys aptly juggling through quite a few quick fast/slow section alternations and imposing epic developments.

It’s a real pity that the band failed to unleash their “fairy tales” earlier, upon inception; they would have matched every single practitioner from the then instigated new German power/speed metal wave with ease, and would have established a trend in their homeland which started waking up for new possibilities outside the black and death metal rosters, with another similarly-styled act, Art of Fear, emerging in the 90’s for the production of three capable full-lengths and three EP’s in the next ten years. The latter also had to compensate for the inexplicable disappearance of our heroes here who took a very low profile once again, a hiatus that was extended all the way to 2018… yes, their third coming is freshly released upon the world, another high-class power/speed metal roller-coaster that should generate the deserved fair number of accolades in the months to come. Ravens and dogs are having a moshing feast and we, humans, see no reasons why we shouldn’t join it with all the youthful, reckless enthusiasm we can summon.