| CD REVIEW Sons Of Seasons |
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Band: Sons Of Seasons Until late 2006, keyboardist Oliver Palotai, drummer Daniel Schild and guitarist Luca Princiotta were still members of Blaze, the band of former Iron Maiden’s frontman Blaze Bayley. But then Blaze got a new management and, disagreeing with their methods, the complete line-up decided to quit! For Palotai (also of Doro and Kamelot fame, by the way), this became the opportunity to start working on a new project which was to combine elements of Classical with Progressive Metal and Jazz touches. The first two to join him in January 2007, were his former Blaze bandmates (except Bayley, of course), joined in early Summer by bassist Jürgen Steinmetz, and later that same Summer by singer Tijs Vanneste. Regretfully his own job schedule didn’t quite meet with the band’s future touring plans, so he quit on amical terms. By the end of that same year, Palotai introduced singer Henning Basse (of Metalium) to the band’s music (they’d met during the Japan tour of Kamelot), and what the latter heard was só much to his liking, he immediately added his own ideas to the material. I’ve no idea when the link with Napalm was made, but apparently the band was already recording their album during October of last year. In November Palotai had an intimate meeting (don’t get any funny ideas now) with Princiotta, and at the end of that meeting it was convened mutually that it would be better for the two to go their own ways. In his stead, the band recruited former Ancient Curse guitarist Pepe Pierez, who did his first rehearsals with the band in January 2009 in preparartion for the short bout of shows the band was to do in Belgium and Holland during February. Also in January the band, in collaboration with Alex Krull, mixed and mastered the album at Stuttgart’s Mastersound Studios. The resulting 14 tracks are proof that the objectives Palotai had projected have been met! Well, I’m not so sure where any Jazz influences are supposed to come through (but then maybe that’s an aspect laid aside as the band progressed), but here is indeed a nice hybridisation of Classical music (piano play with orchestral keyboard backings) with a (sometimes rather aggressive) Progressive Metal (which is complex enough to last many of the analists among us a shit-load of listening sessions before having found out all the niceties hidden underneath the overall melodic music)…with the support of Basse’s strong voice! In addition, the album also contains a guest vocal appearance by Epica’s Simone Simons, whom did backings on a couple of the songs, but was also allowed to come to the fore more prominently during “Fallen Family” and “”Wintersmith” (the latter a calmer duet, and as such you miht say it’s the album’s ballad). Looking at the album cover, you might expect a darker content as well…and indeed there’s a degree of darkness coming through in those heavier album tracks! Check out samples of the album’s title track, “A Blind Man’s Resolution”,and “Fallen Family” at myspace.com/sonsofseasons! And, by the way, the regular album version will only contain 13 tracks, the extra reserved for the limited edition digipak, which will also have a quite different cover artwork. As you’ll most probably agree, this is very, véry nice stuff, but somehow it didn’t give me that instant click which elevates albums into my “must-absolutely-have”-list! I suspect the band’s internal fine-tuning wasn’t quite finished yet, so we can only hope that a more involved collaboration from new guitarist Pepe might make a chenge to that on a following outing of the band! 90/100 Tony. |