Dragonland

Starfall
Magick Records

11 tracks; 49:27

Fantasy-themed metal has a great capacity for creativity and originality. Beyond fantasy, there's not much subject matter left other than either political pomp or people's personal feelings (ewwww). And who hasn't heard all that stuff a million times before? So it's nice to see that the ancient craft of story telling is alive and well in DRAGONLAND's third album, Starfall.

That's pretty much the extent of the originality you'll find on this release though, as the tunage is generally typical Power Prog. Yup, if you've heard Dream Theatre, Sonata Arctica, Dark Moor or other such ilk, you've essentially already heard Starfall. But hey, it takes a helluvalota skill and expertise to sound like those guys! DRAGONLAND are by no means hacks. And of course there are elements to their material that sets them apart to a certain extent from their counterparts. The synthesizers, for instance, are probably more heavily utilized than you might expect from this genre. Maybe the purists out there will cringe at that thought, but not me. I gobble up that stuff up. And this guy is a synth master to boot. He zaps out a gargantuan spectrum of sounds, samples and effects that goes far to keep the entire album diabolically colorful. Meanwhile, don't even get me started on the guitars. Ok, do get me started then. Well there are two guitarists and holy moly, the more I listen, the more I discover how amazing they both are. Totally blistering. It's like a double whammy Yngwie Malmsteen explosion. The singer is seriously talented too. But, you know, that's a position where a guy could really go far to help a band carve out a unique identity for itself. So it's kind of a drag that he's so ultra stereotypical. At times I wish he would just lay off. The way I see it, these guys are already pushing the limits of synthesis so far already, they should keep going with it and start processing the hell out of this guy's voice. They could really fuck shit up with that and make themselves way more individual and recognizable. Fuck the purists. They're a bunch of chicken shits anyway.

Meanwhile, the compositions are complex and sophisticated. There's enough material here to keep the listener interested for quite some time. The big bonus is that the songs aren't overwhelmingly cheesy, which is what one might sadly expect from this genre. There's lots of stop and start stuff, and they like to gently build progressions toward a sudden, crushing boom, creating massively dense walls of sound. It's fun.

So, if you're a Power Metal fan, you're surely gonna love Starfall. It doesn't get much better than this.

Regan Perlett