Wings of Forever

Well I'll be damned if this isn't the lamest thing I've heard in months. Not that it's bad, though - on the contrary, this is pretty good if you're into cheesy power metal. If you took DragonForce's early songs and combined them with some mid-era Stratovarius, and then chucked in two extra keyboard players, you'd get something close to what Power Quest are doing on this debut album. They're not original at all, but if you want originality from a power metal band, you'd have to cross out about 75% of the genre's mainstays.

Power Quest have indeed not pioneered anything new, and they're not even expanding on the sound they're ripping off, so in all reality, this album is quite pointless. But it's power metal to it's flowery, cheese-filled extreme, the equivalent a gigantic, puffy donut rich with melodious keyboards and ear candy that will no doubt delight anyone who calls himself a fan of DragonForce and the likes. Power Quest isn't as fast or arrogant as DragonForce, and they aren't quite as glorious as old Stratovarius or Freedom Call, but their musicianship is nothing to scoff at either. Keyboards are often a turn off for metal fans, and the people who dislike them would certainly abhor this album, but Steve Williams' majestic, sweeping keys make for quite a listening experience - just listen to the bonus track "Gates of Tomorrow" for proof; an epic instrumental of ineffable grandeur. And the solos are great fun as well, although the guitar is far, faaaaaar too low in the mix for my taste. Standout tracks include the absolutely fantastic "Follow your Heart" and "Freedom of Thought", being the slightly progressive, Sonata Arctica-esque jaunts they are, and "Beyond the Stars" has a pretty cool chorus. Everything else is passable, but nothing special.

Downsides? This is really too happy; a mood thing for me. A lot of the time I'm not going to want to listen to something this fluffy and nice. There's nothing evil or even mildly bad to be found here, theme-wise, it's all uplifting and glorious and jubilant all the way through. The production is very thin and renders the band rather weak and wimpy, while they'd be much more suited with a full, modern production ala Stratovarius's Destiny or perhaps DragonForce's Inhuman Rampage. The guitars are barely audible except during the soaring, shredding solos, and that's not good either, especially since the drums are oh so much more prominent, allowing us to get full blast the rapid-fire double bass drumming. It is a debut though, so I won't fault them too much for that.

Final verdict? If you can't get enough of cheesy, happy, flowery power metal, you want this. And otherwise, avoid.

The passage of time often comes with a desire to amend, or at least revise and extend one's remarks on a given matter, and perhaps the clearest eventuality of this would be revisiting an album that one first opined on a little over a decade ago. Whether one wishes to chalk it up to nostalgia with the looming prospect of middle age, there remains a special place in this author's discography for Power Quest's debut album Wings Of Forever, an album that would ultimately prove to be the first in a series of manifestos of former DragonHeart/Dragonforce keyboardist Scott Williams' divergent musical vision relative to his former band mates, many of whom would ironically help make that vision a reality. As with most first attempts at striking out on one's own, the line of separation between where one was and where one is going is a bit less clearly drawn, and the comparisons between this album and Dragonforce's soon to follow debut Valley Of The Damned carry merit, though some were trying to make Mt. Everest out of a moderate sized hill.

In contrast to the aforementioned Dragonforce album, the general feel of things is a bit more humble, though that's not saying a whole lot given how anti-humble Dragonforce has been since day one. The tendency is definitely towards speed and relative to the rest of the power metal scene circa 2002, this was extraordinarily flashy and technically oriented. The humility factor largely plays into things given a lack of resources, as the lack of a living drummer prompted the use of a drum machine that, while a bit more realistic sounding than what Rolf Kasparek has allegedly been using for the past decade or so, results in a fairly mechanical and low-fi element invading an otherwise very organic and strong album. Coupled with a songwriting approach results in an album that is somewhat bloated and overly focused on epics and atmospheric interludes rather than fast-paced bangers (which proves to be this band's strong point on subsequent albums), this sense of slight unevenness culminates in a Persian flaw that would vanish from the next couple albums, but is a tiny blot on an otherwise captivating illustration.

Perhaps the best distinction that can be drawn between where Scott Williams is going with this band in contrast to his former fold, apart from a greater emphasis on keyboards as both an atmospheric element and a lead instrument, is that he is playing the part of a storyteller rather than Sam Totman's shtick of a wizard impresario with good melodic hooks on the side. Both of them were in the habit of writing long songs in their early years, but Williams was clearly more concerned with tempering impact with a healthy degree of nuance, and this is best displayed on the mid-paced epic songs "Power Quest (Part 1)" and "Follow Your Heart", each one showcasing wild guitar solo gymnastics, but also a greater degree of progression and development overall. It gets a bit less noticeable on faster paced numbers like "Glory Tonight" and the title song "Wings Of Foever" from a musical standpoint, in no small part because the songs have a similar pacing to the average song on Valley Of The Damned and because Adam Bickers' wildly shred-happy guitar style could be likened to Herman Li minus the video-game effects, but the melodic contour comes off as less blunt and in your face.

This continual theme of comparison and contrast between this album and the Dragonforce debut sort of comes to a head where the sense of nuance alluded to previously is either heightened further, or downplayed. On the latter end of things stands "Beyond The Stars", Sam Totman's lone exclusive songwriting credit on this album and a literal Dragonforce song under a different name to boot. Any number of cookers on Valley Of The Damned have a similar feel to this rocket-paced cruiser, and it gives a bird's eye view into how said album might have sounded had Williams not quit. A similar story is found in the most outright catchy and shameless fast rocker "Far Away", which contrasts primarily through Alessio Garavello's vocal display, which is slightly more versatile in range and more conducive to layered harmonies than ZP Theart's gravely wail. Particularly on "Immortal Plains", this album's lone foray into power balladry, Alessio takes time away from his rather brilliantly realized Michael Kiske meets Bruce Dickinson high range for a crooning baritone that actually plays well to the dense piano and keyboard backdrop. When put together with the astounding high-octane galloping glory of the album's de facto closer "Freedom Of Thought" and two rather catchy yet brief instrumental prologues and epilogues to open and close the whole affair, one might be tempted to call this a concept album under the guise of a standard collection of highly ambitious songs.

In retrospect, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that this album sounds like a different band compared to what came later, due in no small part to Williams' still ongoing evolution as a songwriter and a revolving lineup that saw the two principle soloists of this album (Totman and Bickers, each resembling one of the two lead players of Dragonforce) exit for a newcomer with a very different sound and style as well as several different musicians and a few various singers towards the end. It's not so much a lack of maturity or identity but more a dominant youthful energy that overtakes the songwriting at several key points, not to mention a diversity of input that would later exit the fold. It has a sort of working class charm to it coupled with an otherworldly sense of ambition that creates this feeling of tension that is not lost on nostalgic power metal kids of yesteryear such as myself, though to this day it is probably best remembered as that Dragonforce side-project that later morphed into something else. But whatever one's takeaway from how original this album may have been at this time, it still listens as good today as it did 14 years ago, which is not something that can be said for every collection of songs floating around in metal's extensive past.

(Rewritten on September 24th, 2016)