Band : Powers Court

Album title : The Red Mist Of Endenmore

Label : Dragonheart

Distributor : Metal Blade/ Rough Trade

Release date : 28/03/2008

Release : CD

I know I'm probably gonna get trashed by the band's fans, and I'd never guessed I'd hear myself say this about àny singer, but the vocal delivery of Powers Court mastermind, guitarist and singer Danie Powers is occasionaly weird to say the least. She happens to be the possessor of a 4 ½ octave range voice, see, and she uses this voice to bring all the lead ànd backing vocals on this, the band's long-awaited 3 rd album. The thing is, she's already got a somewhat weird vocal signature in her normal mode, so when this is taken some two octave higher, the end result is somewhat...dare I say ridiculous, and actually best forgotten?

But first, let's turn back the clock a couple of decades. In the early '90 Powers was involved with Metal covers act Meanstreak . She then found the necessary musicians within the scene of her native St. Louis, in bassist B.J. Blair and drummer BLZ Bob , to forge Crucible . This evolved into Equinox when Monty York took over bass duties, and when former Exodust and Razor Blaze four-stringer Steve Murray was drafted into the band in 1994 the act again changed names to their current one. This line-up recorded and self-financed the release of their self-titled debut album in 1996, and with it eventually secured the interest of Italian specialist label Dragonheart . A sophomore album came with 2001's Nine Kinds Of Hell . Then follows a dark period in PC history, which was long time avoided in interviews. The thing is, first Danie 's both parents consecutively died, and she had a potentially lethal illness which sidetracked the band for a while. Give another year after the medications to fully recuperate and get her strength back. Once she was over that she went to visit a relative in Oregon and fell 12 feet from a loft onto her back, breaking a vertebrae and putting her in a back brace for several months, leading to yet another recuperation period. Things finally returning to normal, their drummer suddenly decides to become a "Born Again" crusader, pushing Steve and Danie into a search for a suitable drummer just when then thought they had the perfect line-up together. Following that, Steve had a near fatal truck accident in which his vehicle rolled over six times...from which he miraculously comes away without too much harm. Then Danie herself hits a retaining wall with her car and totals it.

Well, there were more incidents keeping the band from actually getting together and working on a new album, but Danie herself is afraid they might seem like fake reasons, so she didn't get further into details (personally, I feel it's amazing the band is still in one piece at all)...but eventually Danie found the necessary time to create the story on which this album is based. It's about an evil and twisted land owner who becomes obsessed by a pagan village chieftain's daughter (the novella-length tale will soon be available on the band's Myspace and website), and the story involves black magic, sorcery, a tarot reader, clandestine meetings, murderous plots, espionage, revenge, regret...as mentioned in a first review of the album done by Dave Winslow of Metallion USA , posted as blog on myspace.com/powerscourt: "...it's William Shakespeare meets Geoffrey Chauser and has tea with King Diamond !...".

Well, noting bad said about the lyrics, nor of the instrumental delivery, which is truly great, and has earned the band comparisons to the likes of King Diamond , " Manilla Road on crack", and Iced Earth . True enough, when singing in her mid-range, her tenor-like voice IS rememniscent of Mark Shelton ...and as I've told you, my personal objections is with some of her higher vocal efforts. Weirdly enough, sóme of her soprona vocals are really quite good, and it's therefore surprising that in some occasions where multi-layered vocals are used, she bends her voice to that squeeky sound which troubles me so much. The band's own website powerscourt.com still being in construction, I cannot invite you to listen to such songs as "Power Tapestry" , "The Tarot Reader" , and "There Once Was A Tim e" , or "A Somber Day" and "Vain Regrets" (in which those vocals are actually acceptable somewhat). Because at their Myspace page the band was careful enough to post ony two tracks of the album (the album's title track and bonus track "Cold Day In Hell" – a cover, right? Can't just seem to find out by whom it was originally!) which clearly puts the band in the Epic Metal style of the aforementioned Manilla Road . Also available there are 3 songs off their sophomore effort, which show that the band's guitar sound has grown somewhat more aggressive.

So, you might understand my split feelings about this album, eh? Because while on the one side it cannot be denied that musically everything is darn, dàrn well-executed...with great music as a result...I cannot for the life of me come to terms with those occasionally strange vocals. The rating is therefore accordingly low!

78/100

Tony.