Power Quest - Magic Never Dies

*=Staff's pick	Ascension* Find My Heaven* Galaxies Unknown Hold On To Love Diamond Sky* The Message Soulfire* Children Of The Dream Strike Force* Another World Magic Never Dies*

Genre	Melodic Power Metal	Alessio Gravelli	Vocals
Tracks	11	Andrea Martongelli	Guitar
Runningtime	49 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Majestic Rock	Steve Scott	Bass
Release	18 July 2005	Francesco Tresca	Drums
Country	England	Steve Williams	Keyboards
Similar artists	Axenstar, Dragonforce, Sonata Arctica

Third time out for the nowadays much more merited British/Italian metal brigade. Magic Never Dies is the title of the album that's going to carry the Power Quest banner further into the metal realms with its eleven new and highly melodic numbers. Once again main song writer and founder Steve Williams thus has lived up to his conception regarding metal: melody really is everything and put in perspective this reaches the melodic levels that only Freedom Call can equal! So doubtlessly the same recipe as on the previous releases is used again and as usual the speedy numbers are accompanied by more arena/stadium rock pieces in a carefully measured blend. The faster songs still lean strongly towards bands like Axenstar, Dragonforce and Sonata Arctica while the more pop tinged hard rock edged tracks bear strong marks of for instance Magnum, Asia and Thin Lizzy .

In comparison to the other two recordings however Magic Never Dies adopts an overall speedier twist of things and puts the fast numbers in stronger majority. Otherwise this is as aforementioned basically a very natural continuing story with returning inputs like synth pads, swift power chords, guitar versus keyboards and falsetto vocals. Williams and Martongelli combine their keys and guitar efforts splendidly and obviously a joint action is more effective. Leads from their respective instrument are found in equal amounts throughout the whole affair and if you insist on having very pronounced keyboard flairs to your music, Power Quest certainly knows how to accomplish this with the honours. Among the more memorable songs we certainly have at least a handful. Find My Heaven and Galaxies Unknown are very typical up tempo Power Quest numbers that instantly stick. The same goes for Diamond Sky, Soulfire and Strike Force whereof the latter is a real killer with onehulluva' sing-along potential. The title track finally unfolds William's brilliance as he's here written one of his strongest songs so far. The epic chorus is according to this reviewer the best ever in the PQ catalogue and the song as a whole wraps things up perfectly.

I also have to give Power Quest serious credit for delivering a much more versatile metal approach than their colleagues in Dragonforce that as good as single-mindedly focus on speedy numbers and therefore are in the danger zone of becoming a bit too monotonous. This is much more varied and don't for a second doubt the less fast numbers on this album. Those are far from being just mandatory and trivial fillers but serve as excellent complements and with so much melody wrapped tightly around every number this is a very enjoyable listen.

So an absolute top grade is very much within reach but it still doesn't go all the way since the main problem since Neverworld and Wings of Destiny continues to remain: the absence of a fatter drum sound and a more powerful vocal delivery. Without the presence of those two inputs the whole deal gets a notch too nice and neat as the little extra punch and fat fall away even though the production is their best so far. With a further improvement in those aspects Power Quest will most likely turn into a metal monster equipped to conquer and swallow the world. At present time however the band has to suffice with more moderate chunks.

A matter of course regarding Power Quest and their chosen metal path though is that many will judge their efforts very critically and say that this is yet another standard Helloweenish copycat in the melodic metal pantheon. But so what if their power metal ideals are far from new and have been heard in similar ways before? There's still a major and fundamental difference between quality and quantity and Power Quest certainly belong among the quality sort. Even though quite little here is really inventive or original, the music is very well played and performed and the strong melodic ore strongly overrides the omnipresent feeling of deja vu. I guess you just have to decide for yourselves what truly matters: originality or "just" good songs along an already used formula. I sure know how to choose… However, I don't quite think that this release will cause any serious hype or win over any new fans to their camp site but if you like melodic happy metal and what this band has produced in the past there's no way you'll get disappointed with these 49 minutes of pure Power Questness. There's lots of undying magic here and I'm frankly quite caught in their spell.