Tales of Magic

This is what the kids these days call a meme. Tales of Magic is an obnoxious, cringeworthy joke of an album passing off as power metal. It’s full of generic songwriting and various cliches throughout, which makes this album an absolute slog to listen to, yet alone finish.

The main influences to Tales of Magic would be the card game Magic: The Gathering, and the band Gloryhammer, which isn’t surprising considering vocalist Sozos Michael is also in Gloryhammer. If you are unfamiliar with Gloryhammer, they are what you would get if you took the cheesy tropes of symphonic power metal such as bombastic orchestration, choirs, keyboards galore, threw it in a blender, and added so much cotton candy fluff that bands such as Rhapsody of Fire and Fairyland would even tone it down. Now back to Tales of Magic. The first thing that’s noticeable is Sozos Michael’s vocal delivery which is weak, thin as a bubble, and downright terrible throughout. He has no range, weak vocal melodies, and has a nasally pitch whenever he tries to hit anything high. His voice is so thin and weak it sounds somewhat whiny at times, like something from a mid 2000s emo pop-punk band. That’s not even the worst part. The worst part would be the harsh vocals which are just dreadful. “Shadow of Emeria” is a perfect example of his terrible voice, as he does everything poorly in it, especially the alternating between harsh vocals and high, nasally notes.

The keyboards are just there to let you know that Tales of Magic simply has them. The songs start with a symphonic key melody and take a back seat for a while then pop up again during a chorus. The same thing could be said about the guitars. They’re just there, and that’s it. Having listened to Tales of Magic several times now, I can’t remember any truly interesting riff or melody. It’s just generic, uninspired, through and through, completely vapid of personality or creativity. Absolutely nothing positive stands out on Tales of Magic. I can only recall all the junk on it like the terrible vocals. “Oath of the Gatewatch” has some guest vocalists, but they don't add anything. They're just there for the sake of having female vocals. This song is also the worst on the whole album, and its eleven minutes long at that. It also has this annoying down-tuned, nu-metal like riff, with more dreadful harsh vocals that start about two minutes into it and it’s by far the worst thing on the whole album. It’s a complete butcher job on vocals. After a while I just want the vocals to go away so I can focus on the guitars, but whenever Sozos Michael isn’t singing the guitars aren’t doing anything interesting. Every solo section sounds like the last, and every riff is unremarkable outside of the one terrible one on “Oath of the Gatewatch.” There are no interesting hooks or riffs to remember. It’s so been there, done that.

Lyrically, this is one of the only bands or albums I am aware of that uses Magic: The Gathering as a theme. That’s somewhat interesting if I’m being honest. A game so popular around the world you would think there would be more bands writing music about it. Yet the lyrics are cringeworthy and no better than generic power metal lyrics about love, rainbows, or unicorns. Hell, just writing generic crappy lyrics about being more metal than everybody ala Manowar isn’t as lame. Maybe if I knew more about Magic: The Gathering they would be more appealing to be, but they’re written so juvenile and childlike. Seriously, “Oath of the Gatewatch” has some incredibly generic lyrics. "I fight for peace, I fight for love, I fight for freedom, for tears to come” is just so lame.

I hope this was some onetime side project, because the further I get into Tales of Magic, the more irritating it gets. It is neither a spoof nor a parody, yet it’s so bad it sounds like one. It sounds like a joke, a gag, a meme, but it isn’t. These guys sat down, wrote this album, and recorded it while being totally seriously about everything, and it failed miserably. It critically failed! It failed and it comes off as nothing more than a joke. Seriously, there’s nothing positively remarkable about it, and it just sounds overblown and corny with an annoying vocalist. Tales of Magic is a terrible joke of an album that falls flat on its face and takes 9 points of damage and belongs in the graveyard.