The Princess' Day

Skylark; I gave this band a chance simply because there cover artwork kicks serious ass. However, unlike all the other times I have made impulse-buys solely on artwork, the good artwork couldn’t make up for how much of a miss this album was (thankfully I didn’t pay 15 Euros to order it directly from the label.) This album has potential, but something went very wrong.

Every metal genre has the plague of idiots; death metal has all the “Drunken idiot” bands running around talking about raping women with VHS tapes, black metal has all the “Norsecore kiddies," bedroom bands and Christian black metal, and sadly (even though one wouldn’t think it) even power metal has such a group. Skylark is an example of the “Dungeons & Dragons” fantasy metal bands. Now mind you, fantasy themes are not something I am against, but when it is cliché and boring it becomes bothersome.

Lyrically, this is some kind of concept album about man vs. Satan. Before you read further remind yourself that Satan is pretty much the driving force and lyrically influence in black metal, and sadly, this is where he should stay. The spoken outro pretty much sums up how the horned one has been made a super villain by Skylark (seriously he has a bad evil laugh and everything) which is sadly just dumb, and makes the whole point of Hell reduced to simple Disney fairytales.

Their vocalist is downright awful. His accent is horrendous and every thing he says sounds like a needle jammed into my brain. At times he manages to sound like a horrible Kiske clone, but sadly that’s the best it gets. In terms of power metal, I am obsessed with vocals, so when a power metal vocalist sounds flat or bothersome it really gets annoying.

The symphonic parts are something to drool over, sadly there probably the only thing on here worth drooling over. The bonus instrumental was one of the better keyboard pieces I’ve heard. Of course, the keys are so awesome that the drumming doesn’t shine through the production (if you have read some of my previous reviews you would realize how I hate this). The keyboards are truly exceptional. However, with the drumming totally buried by them, after a while it becomes too much.

Whoever wrote the riffs must have tried to ride the whole “melodic” wave, because these songs are loaded with melodic riffs and bass lines (when the bass is audible). There is a general lack of solos on this disc, which is weird for power metal. This is by no means bad, just different.

The first few tracks on “The Princess’ Day” (this name makes no sense to me) are slower more moody songs. Sad songs and slow riffs attempt to set a dark feel for this album. Then everything explodes with decent Domine worship, of course no where near as epic. At times the songs drift into Helloween territories (they do these parts well) but no where near as catchy (I fail to hear the “Hooks” Eddy is famous for).

In closing: avoid this unless you are a die hard fantasy fan. The content on here is sub-par (excluding the keyboards, there up there with Dark Moor’s work). Now I’m going to go give “The Gates of Oblivion” a listen and try to forget this painful experience.