Band : Magic Kingdom
Album title : Symphony Of War
Label : Limb Music
Distributor : Suburban
Release Date : 28/10/2010
Release : CD

Third release in 12 years for this Belgian band, yes, despite the strange sounding names of the musicians it’s a Belgian band.  Their previous album ‘Metallic Tragedy’ was released in 2004.

Musically they tap in the same vein as Rhapsody Of Fire so fans of this band, just like Yngwie Malmsteen will be pleased with this album.  It’s Power metal, with a lot of classical music influences.
Lyrics are about wars, dragons, demons.  Musically it’s mostly fairly fast paced music, with blistering guitar solo’s.  I’d even dare to compare it to classical music, but played with modern, electronic instruments.

What is a bit sad though is the vocals.  Olaf Hayer is the groups new vocalist, and you might remember that he did the vocals on all of Luca Turilli’s solo albums, and a nice job he did there.
Here the singing isn’t bad, that’s not the problem, but occasionally he produces some grunts and growls, things you’re absolutely not accustomed to in power metal. This is why I don’t rate this album higher, because the rest of the album is very good indeed, even if you’re not that big a fan of real power metal like me, you’ll have to admit that musically it all fits very snugly.
One last remark about the artwork.  If you’re a big fan of fantasy, be it on film or in books you’ll adore the cover artwork by Leo Hao who in the past has also worked for bands like Iced Earth and Blind Guardian.

75/100

Erik Morren.