Dionysus - Sign Of Truth

*=Staff's pick	Time Will Tell* Sign Of Truth Bringer Of Salvation Pouring Rain* Anthem (For The Children) Holy War Don't Forget Walk On Fire Never Wait* Loaded Gun

Genre	Power Metal	Olaf Hayer	Vocals
Tracks	10	Johnny Öhlin	Guitar
Runningtime	55 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	AFM Records	Magnus Noberg	Bass
Release	11 Nov. 2002	Ronny Milianowicz	Drums
Country	Sweden	Kaspar Dahlqvist	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

I had looked forward to this debutalbum - a couple of wellknown names in the metalbusiness (Milianowicz - Sinergy, Dahlqvist - Stormwind, Öhlin/Noberg - Nation), with Olaf Hayer as frontman controlling the lion share of the microphone activities, and with the promises of playing good, solid power metal.
The band has been around for 3 years, though, so they are not a totally new constellation. The musical idea behing this was said to be mixing the neoclassical guitarwork and melodies from Nation with the more harder stuff as the doublebass from Sinergy. On the bands website we can read: "Add one of the greatest singers of all time and you end up with a band with enormus musical talent that will have all chances to take the world by storm."
I wouldn´t put that much money on that bet.....

I am a bit disappointed as this is pretty lame and doesn´t really manage to interest except for a few leads or bridges over 55 minutes and that is way too few moments to be worth a cost of this cd.
The riffs are very standard, and the fact that 2 songs very clearly have borrowed Helloween(yes - once again....)harmonies in them, is a sign of that this is lacking something. Why would a band of this dignity have to go there?
And also - what is up? This is the 2nd time I hear a clear rip-off of Sinners marvellus riff from Judgement Day! First it was Tad Morose that copied it and changed one tone on one song on Matters Of The Dark, and now Dionysus are doing the same in the song Bringer Of Salvation.

Apperantly guitarist Öhlin can handle his 6-string with the honours, but why not show that more? During his short but nevertheless journeys in the neoclassic wonderland it sounds very good, and I could feel hope, but there are very few moments of that on this cd. Wasn´t that one of things that this band was supposed to play?

Co-produced by Tobias Sammet and mixed by Tommy Newton you would think that the production would a be a little bit more "fat" than this, but I guess the band has got exactly what they were looking for here, but I think it´s a bit too thin for my listeningpleasure.

I have to say that Olaf Hayer is performing one of his least good vocals on this album, and it doesn´t feel inspiring at all. I have never been really impressed with his vocals, since I think they don´t have any depth, nor power or real feeling, and here they are more flat than ever.

This is power metal Light and was quickly forgotten after it stopped spinning, and I doubt that I will bring this cd out in the light many times more in my life.
There are too many other really good metalalbums out there for that to happen.