Luca Turilli - King Of The Nordic Twilight

*=Staff's pick	To Magic Horizons Black Dragon* Legend of Steel* Lord of the Winter Snow Princess Aurora The Ancient Forest of Elves* Throne of Ice Where Heroes Lie* Warrior's Pride King of the Nordic Twilight*

Genre	Power/Fantasy Metal	Olaf Hayer	Vocals
Tracks	10	Luca Turilli	Guitar
Runningtime	50 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	SPV	Sascha Paeth	Bass
Release	24 Sep. 2001	Robert Hunecke-Rizzo	Drums
Country	Italy	Miro	Keyboards
Similar artists	Rhapsody

As you might have guessed already this is of course the solo-project from the genius songwriter and lead guitarist from Italian masters of epic symphony metal Rhapsody. And the style is unquestionable. This is Luca Turilli in great form and King of the Nordic Twilight contains some really out-of-this-world tunes of power metal music heard once in a blue moon.

But does it reach the same level as Rhapsody? Well, I must say it's close, very close. The only difference in sound is almost just the voice of the singer. Olaf Hayer's got a somewhat more high-pitch voice than his colleague Fabio Leone has. Otherwise the sound is very "rhapsodish" and all the elements of Turilli's ordinary band can be found here. So overall I think that the album is somewhat better than Symphony of Enchanted Lands and a bit worse than Dawn of Victory.

There are some awesome tracks here that are also worth a special mentioning. The ones that stand out the most are Legend of Steel and The Ancient Forest of Elves. These two are definitely among Turilli's best work ever. I also adore the very epic album closer and title song Kings of the Nordic Twilight. If you like the epic fantasy branch of the metal business it's very hard for me to think of a better way to spend 12 minutes.

But, (of course there's always a but) we have to deal with the ballad issue in this case too. Twice. And that's at least one too many. Turilli's talents lie in making fast power metal tracks and not ballads. Sure, they contain very beautiful classic arrangements and nice melodies, but in my opinion they lower the feel of the album.

Despite this, King of the Nordic Twilight must come to your possession if you're into Rhapsody and symphonic power metal in general.
And hang in there 'cause there's more to come. Luca Turilli's Virtual Odyssey as he refers to it is really a trilogy so we can expect two more releases from this project. This was just the first chapter of (quote) "three worlds, three different locations at the opposite extremes of space and time…".

The following words are also Turilli's own and all I can do is fully agree: "Relax your body, prepare your mind, turn your speakers up and enjoy the virtual odyssey… and hope to return!"

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	7,5	7

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Mat