Narnia - The Great Fall
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War Preludium |
| Genre | Melodic Metal |
Christian Rivel
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Vocals
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| Tracks | 9 |
Carljohan Grimmark
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Guitar
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| Runningtime | 54 Min. |
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Guitar
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| Label | Nuclear Blast |
Andreas Olsson
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Bass
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| Release | 07 April 2003 |
Andreas Johansson
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Drums
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| Country | Sweden |
Martin Claeson
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Keyboards
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| Similar artists | Yngwie Malmsteen, Rainbow | ||
Swedish Narnia's fourth studio album, The Great Fall is here and with that a concept one. The story is about a soldier and his experiences and spiritual journey through a war during which he struggles to find God for his broken soul. That means the Christian undertones are present again, but as usual the message is absolutely not being shoved down our throats.
The band's line-up has changed since the last album as bass player Andreas Olsson and keyboarder Martin Claeson are new members. The old usual trademarks as the neoclassical influences of course remain and the familiar backbone with Rivel's clear and polished voice together with Grimmark's superb guitar playing hasn't changed much either. Their sound for you new aquaintances of the band could be said to mostly resemble Yngwie Malmsteen's work with some touches of Rainbow, but this time some progressive touches have been brought in too.
The album kicks off in a very good way with the very catchy and melodic uptempo track The Countdown Has Begun and is a the start almost every release should have. It's followed by Back From Hell which is a song that have strong reminders of Iced Earth and also contains a brilliant guitar solo by Grimmark. So far so good, but then the albums kind of falls flat on its face. The three following songs are forgotten almost before they end no matter how many times I listen to them. I've given them enough chances to change this opinion of mine but these tracks simply are way too slow and insignificant, which make the album loose pace and it gets way too boring.
This unhappy sequence is broken by the more up-tempo Judgement Day, which has a great keyboard beginning and some quite cool progressive parts. The drumsticks on this is handled by Hammerfall's Anders Johansson. The following instrumental track- Desert Land- also falls under the category insignificant and never seems to really get to me. The album epic closer, The Great Fall, is a great effort though and ranges for more than 13 minutes. It contains some very interesting sections, among them a military march sequence and several great tempo changes. The guest appearance of vocalist Eric Clayton from Savior Machine on this track is an excellent choice and sets the perfect mood.
Despite these highligthts though, I'm afraid The Great Fall as a whole isn't what I had hoped it would be. With the tough competition of today and the recent metal releases it will be very hard for Narnia and I have to say that they probably will come out on the downside of it. The band has the talent and great musicians on every position, but the material isn't good enough this time and certainly not to support a concept story. The production though, is as always with Narnia, extremely good and saves at least one chalice in the overall grade.
The die hard fans I'm sure will find The Great Fall very digestable and some melodic metallers might agree with them. However, those of you who like it faster and more aggressive shouldn't bother that much with Aslan & Co this time. Hopefully they'll sharpen their claws and give us something more powerful with their next release.
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Production
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Vocals
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Compositions
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8 |
7,5 |
4,5 |
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Summary
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5,5 chalices of 10 - Mat |
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