Artist: Winter's Verge
Label: SPV Records
Released: 2008
Rating: 1/5
Unbelievable! I never thought that in 2008 I’d be getting a fresh debut from some band that’s an identical clone of power metal riffs sifted through a billion times already. The Cypriots in Winter’s Verge are showing up with their offering at least ten years late, because the best stuff in power metal dates to exactly the second half of the nineties. Back then everything was said and done, once and for all, with revival bands like HamerFall, Rhapsody of Fire, Stratovarius and Edguy. These days there are enough bands like Winters’ Verge on planet Earth to fill a proper Precambrian ocean.
Pomp and bombast at every turn, wrapped in lush, classically cut arrangements that hang on the choice of melodic lines for the vocals, the backing vocals and the orchestral passages alike. Maybe we should cut them some slack for the cloning, since the guys are Cypriots, and maybe the latest metal news just reaches that faraway island with a ten-year delay. Enough sarcasm. It is what it is. Technically, the album holds up fine on quality. But it feels artificial, way too artificial in this case. Even though the album was produced superbly by R.D. Liapikis (Mystic Prophecy).
The keyboards, meanwhile, sound venomously Finnish in both the tone and the solos (fans of Sonata Arctica, Children Of Bodom and Stratovarius, take note!!!), and then there’s the double bass pedal backing every single riff, which in its unstoppable pummeling knows only top gear. The vocals aren’t anything special either, and in the mid-range especially they don’t hide a gray, expressionless performance that never lifts them above plain average.
The album spinning in my CD player this time around is really meant for the most hardcore power metal maniacs, the ones who buy every last thing the shelves have to offer in this genre.
Did I forget to add anything?
Lineup
George Charalambous – vocals
Harrys Pari – guitar
Stefanos Psillides – keyboards
Miguel Trapezaris – bass
Andreas Charalambous – drums
Production
R.D. Liapakis
Track list
1. Eternal Damnation (04.47)
2. My Winter Sun (04.54)
3. Get Me Out (03.56)
4. Hold My Hand (05.10)
5. A Secret Once Forgotten (05.27)
6. Goodbye (05.42)
7. Spring Of Life (04.10)
8. Can You Hear Me (05.19)
9. For I Have Sinned (03.03)
10. To You Sail Tonight (06.36)
11. Suicide Note (04.49)
Album length: 53.53
