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White Skull - The Dark Age


*
=Staff's pick

Penitenziagite (intro)
The Dark Age*
Grand Inquisitor
Maid of Orléans*
New Crusade
The Edict
Voice from the Heaven
Devil´s Woman*
Torture
A New Handbook
Sentence of Death
Theme for the Innocence


Genre Power Metal
Gus Gabarró
Vocals
Tracks 12
Tony "Mad" Fontó
Guitar
Runningtime 52 Min.
Danilo Bar
Guitar
Label Frontiers Records
Fabio Pozzato
Bass
Release 09 Sep. 2002
Alex Mantiero
Drums
Country Italy
-
Keyboards
Similar artists ---

The Dark Age is Italian White Skull's fifth full-length studio-release and also the first one with the new vocalist Gus Gabarró. Once again we're dealing with a concept album that concerns the Spanish Inquisition during the Middle Age. This I knew beforehand and since White Skull are one of personal favourites my expectations were very high, despite the fact that Frederica Sister had left the band.

However, I must say that I am a bit disappointed here. It's not the absence of Frederica that's bothering me but also that White Skull nowadays doesn't sound at all like before. Although changes aren't necessarily a bad but in this case I'm afraid they are. The vocalist isn't as good, the former great intros and often two-part choruses with the first part slow are not there anymore and the production is also a bit worse than before.
However, there are some good aspects as well.

The overall sound of the album is a very dark and gloomy one and combined with Gus' harsch and raw voice and some good keyboards in many intros still make The Dark Age a good metal-album.

But considering the band's previous releases and their standards I had expected way more. Should this be the debut album of some other band I might have considered giving a higher grade. It's still good melodic power metal but no more. But since this is just the first album with the new constellation, I'm as good as certain that this was just a temporarily adversity.

See also review of: The Ring Of The Ancients , Public Glory, Secret Agony , The XIII Skull

Production
Vocals
Compositions

7

7

7

 
Summary



7 chalices of 10 - Mat

Related links:

www.whiteskull.it