| CD REVIEW White Skull |
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Band: White Skull Gee man, overslept 3 hours this morning…I apparently nééded a little beauty sleep! Which is something White Skull’s new female singer clearly doesn’t need! I mean, she’s a stunning beauty alright! As it turns out the Italian band developed some personal differences of opinion with their former singer Gustova Gadarró during the recordings of the 2006 album The Ring Of The Ancients (you’ll remember I personally remarked the voice being mixed somewhat in the back in my review of the album, posted 21/10 of that same year!), and soon after he left! So the band decided to return to their beginning days when they were also female fronted (by Federica De Boni, who brought her voice to the band’s 4 first full-length albums, and one mini-album), and recruited Elise “Over” De Palma, who’s already proven sufficiently that she’s a crowd mover during live appearances. Further line-up changes occurred with the addition of keyboard player Alessio Lucetti, and the replacement of the bassist by one Jo Raddi…it’s with that line-up that the band set out to the road promote their last album (and with Elisa now fronting the band, that secured them a spot at 2008’s Female Metal Voices festival)! The addition of the keyboardist obviously makes for a somewhat less straight Heavy Metal/ Power Metal approach with the introduction of somewhat orchestral atmospherics, although the guitarists have not let off any of their speedy guitar work! Musically, everything is still quite alright, and rather comparable to previous material by the band! As with the previous album, the new record is conceptual in that the lyrics tell of the epic fights of the Great Barbarians that have gone down in history and mythology. The closing track of the album (“Beer, Cheers”) however, could be seen as a pure drinking song (it is also, like on the previous album, the only song which has some Celtic sounds incorporated in the music)! Right, time to talk a bit about Miss De Palma’s vocal endeavours…which are only convincing in the first half of the album. After that, she starts to…falter, and to be occasionally accent-flawed (in all honesty, I have to say she still did a nice job on the album closer). In essence, the album comes over as if the vocals had been recorded in one day, with several takes per song, and Elisa’s voice & concentration tiring as the day goes on (at least, that’s one possible scenario of what may have happened). Check out what the band posted at myspace.com/whiteskullband to see how you like the new album (a total of 5 songs, all full-length, when I last looked). Who knows, it might be right up your alley. Personally, even after the several listening sessions I gave the album, I have to say that it still somehow sounds flawed to me (not a new thing with White Skull albums…perhaps guitarist Tony Fontó needs to let go of the reigns and hire an outside producer on their next album?), and therefore I simply repeat the rating I gave the previous album! 80/100 Tony. |