The symphonic power metal band
Damnation Angels from Doncaster, England,
is back with a brand new studio album.
With the masterpiece album 'Bringer of
Light' from 2013 in their backpack, I'm
extremely curious how 'The Valiant Fire'
sounds like. The answer: Not any big
surprises in the sound picture actually
since the last album, but they have
evolved during these two years! I've
found several new favourite songs on the
tracklist, which is just magnificently
enjoyable.
Their massive and bombastic symphonic
metal has grown and is even more pompous
and progressive than before. The
powerful vocal performance from the
fantastic Norwegian singer PelleK, who
possesses a super wide tone scale in his
vocal cords, polishes their metal music
into almost perfection. Damnation Angels'
exciting metal style is like a wild
intersection or a insane blend of
Kamelot, Nightwish, Dimmu Borgir,
Avantasia and Angra with a topping of
Queen. Very tasteful and pleasant to
consume for many power metal fans.
Damnation Angels has really done it
again!
This epic album contains nine top-fuelled
tracks (six of them clock over 6
minutes each) and every single song is
unique and it's like a journey into a
dark thrilling fairytale world. It's
exciting and never boring to listen to
'The Valiant Fire' and Pellek's voice fits
like hand in glove in this
symphonic and bombastic metal. I must
mention the closing track 'Under An
Ancient Sun' before any other song, because
this is maybe the best song they ever
made. A sensational song with heavy
guitars, progressive colors, complex
rythms, bombastic drumming, majestic
keys and shining vocals! 8:55 minutes of pure
quality music. A superb track!
The massive, 9:26 minute long track 'The
Frontiersman' is another amazing song.
It starts slow and calm with the
delicious voice of Pellek and grows into
a symphonic metal gold bar in the
middle. Galloping pace and the clear,
high vocals electrify all my senses.
Top score! The progressive tune
'Closure' also starts in a slow pace,
but accelerates after a while, and the
track has a lot of mega-heavy guitar
riffs. Pompous and big metal! Another
strong song is the glimmering ballad
'The Passing' with magnificent
vocals...The opening track 'Finding
Requiem' fills my head with compact and
dark symphonic metal. Imaginative and a
suspenseful track. 'Icarus Syndrome' is
dripping with oily, vigorous,
aplomb power metal and the progressive
parts are sparkling works of art.
Well, folks, this is an album you can
listen to over and over again and find
new great moments you missed in the
previous spin. An album which will
definetly be on my best album of 2015
list!
Damnation Angels:
Will Graney - Guitars, orchestration,
Backing vocals
PelleK - Vocals
John Graney - Drums
