The second release of my band Sages Recital featuring Fabio Lione, John West and many more
Over the top extravaganza Neo classical, Progressive and symphonic metal with a huge focus on the virtuoso side describes the music perfectly. Both instrumental and with vocals by the best singers out there today
Sage's Recital "The Winter Symphony" CD 12 Euros Neoclassical / Symphonic Progressive Heavy / Power Metal second album 2016 in the vein of Yngwie Malmsteen, Stratovarius, Edguy, Rhapsody, Avantasia, Metalium, Blind Guardian & Hammerfall!!!
In reviewing Sage's Recital's self-titled debut album, I bemoaned the wasted potential of this grouping of supremely talented musicians--the album gave each many opportunities to show off, but few to actually advance a song in a useful way. In these sorts of projects, though, one often wonders if things get tightened up the second time around, with the songwriting often finding better balance. Between that and my own personal insistence on hearing everything blessed with John West's voice, I gave take two a try, not that I expected much.
And, well, things got tightened up a bit. While the good moments of Sage's Recital often came as surprises within the dreck, the ones on The Winter Symphony come around often enough that one almost gets used to them. The core sound hasn't changed much--you've still got West singing melodic but weirdly-writtten vocals over Niels Vejlyt's excessive neoclassical guitar runs and Jakob Vand's busy drumming. But it all fits together a little better--mostly the vocal lines are a bit better-written and the guitar parts, while still wildly over the top, tend to be harmlessly silly rather than the sort of laughable that instantly sinks a song. Single "Shooting Star" is a good introduction to this--it's over the top and fluffy, and there's nothing good enough in there to take any sort of hold, but the parts hold together well enough that it passes by pleasantly enough. And hey, it probably has the best studio West high note in a decade, so there's that.
Improve that formula a bit and you get "Kings of Old," which is the best track the band has ever done, not that that's all that high an honor. But it is good enough to actually count as a legitimately good song. Much like "Council of Dragons" on the first album, here the band happens to stumble into an actually good chorus, but unlike that song, here that chorus is surrounded by parts that actually fit it reasonably well. If the album was all at this quality, it would be the sort of thing that might please fans of Artension and the like. It's not, but this is a decent song to check out if you can track it down. There's nothing like a good West chorus.
Drumless ballad "Queen of the Winter" also is of some note--the vocal lines actually have a bit of space here, and West tends to sell that sort of thing well if you give him space. It is kind of weird how, for all of his technical craziness, Vejlyt is clearly at his best when he's playing atmospheric lead parts--he actually does the emotive thing surprisingly well. It serves him well on the ballad, as well as the slower sections of "Kings of Old" and decent instrumental "The Crystal Sword." Still, though, he can't resist going to the same two or three ridiculous, Batio-esque shred runs, most obviously exemplified by the sudden hyperspeed sweeping at the end of the quiet ballad for no discernible reason. It's funny how these immensely talented shred guys--Batio, Vejlyt, Stefan Lindholm, etc. often seem to be unable to get through multiple songs without their parts sounding repetitive.
If you're actually reading this, your primary point of interest about The Winter Symphony is probably the epic title track. If you've read this far, you probably know what long odds Vejlyt faces of actually delivering a coherent and compelling product over that long a timespan. And indeed, he falls well short of the mark. Mind you, there are some moments in there that are actually pretty excellent--West has a killer verse around the six-minute mark, the outro is surprisingly moving, and Fabio Lione is intermittently strong in his guest vocals. But, man, this thing is bloated. Let's talk lyrics for a second. I've written over 20 reviews here now, and I believe I have yet to mention lyrics in any of them. Ultimately, they don't make up much of my listening experience--every now and then I take a liking to some clever rhyming or find something to be overly corny or on-the-nose, but in general I pass by lyrics in pleasant ignorance. But in this band--on this album and the first--they are a legitimate problem. Not only are they the most cliched, faceless fantasy lyrics I've ever heard, they also seem to always be written in a manner inconvenient for singing. There's almost never any rhyming or interesting interaction of the words, and the lines often aren't in any sort of consistent pattern, resulting in awkward phrasings. It would be one thing to do that if the musical style was more progressive or the lyrics had more to say, but kowtowing to these vapid words in a style that demands strong vocal and melodic presence is indeed a high sin. As you might imagine, it's possible to get away with this in a short song if you happen to stumble on phrasings and melodies that work okay, as "Kings of Old" does. But there was no way the title track was going to escape being significantly marred by this flaw, and it suffers badly from it. Moreover, it has an absolutely cringeworthy "dramatic" narration from Vejlyt around the halfway point, where he speaks for over a minute about some nonsense about pulling a sword from a dragon's chest. Far better songs would crumble in the face of such an egregious mistake. All in all, The Winter Symphony is an ostensible step forward--"Kings of Old" works and "Queen of the Winter" sort of does, and most of the rest of it is at least listenable. But the flaws remain far too glaring for this to approach the sort of quality that would merit recommendation to all but the most shred-hungry listeners.
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