Paragon - The Dark Legacy

*=Staff's pick	The Legacy Mirror Of Fate* Breaking Glass Black Hole* Eye Of The Storm Maze Of Dread* The Afterlife Green Hell* Back From Hell* Into The Black

Genre	Heavy Metal	Andreas Babuschkin	Vocals
Tracks	10	Martin Christian	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	Cladius Cremer	Guitar
Label	Remedy Records	Jan Bünning	Bass
Release	28 July 2003	Markus Corby	Drums
Country	Germany	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Iron Savior, Wizard

Producer Piet Sielck may be stabbing himself in the back by producing band after band nowdays with such similar sound to his own Iron Savior. Sure - I for one love the fat and juicy guitarsound and the rich soundpicture with the choirs, but by the time when Iron Savior release their new album we might have gotten just too much of the goodies, and it might not feel so special and amazingly good as it has before.... Well, we'll see about that in due time.

The music on this album is the same as it always has been in the Paragon camp: it's basic and classic, it's headbangingfriendly, it's focused on melodic riffs and refrains and the mixture of styles is good. Some of the songs are fast in the same veins as Abducted from the album Law Of The Blade, and we have the more midtempo ones that are slowly building up to a mighty finish with strong choirs. The fast ones are are a clear majority though and that is good, because it is in that area Paragon do what they do best. It's not for nothing that my "staff's pick" are all smoking fast, galloping tracks with a high singalong factor. Apart from the filler The Afterlife, all the songs on the album are above average and all have their own charm.

Sometimes I wonder how big influence Mr. Sielck actually has on the bands he is producing, because for every new product you can hear how the songstructures are coming closer and closer to how Iron Saviors own are built up. It is more obvious than ever here, since the songs are made from the winning concept. If double bassdrums, pounding riffs, singalong choruses is what you yearn - search no more: Paragon have what you need. Their best so far, so start with this if you are new to the band and like the bands that listed under "similar artists". If you already are a fan - their already good metal has turned slightly better.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8	7	7,5

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy