Band : Ancient Bards
Album title : The Alliance Of The Kings
Label : Limb Music
Distributor : Suburban
Release Date : 16/03/2010
Release : CD

Ancient Bards is a brand new band hailing from Italy.  Just like their Italian countrymen from Rhapsody Of Fire they play symphonic epic power metal, but there's a big difference, i.e. they have a female vocalist.

Now having just written a review for the latest Rhapsody Of Fire album I was quite surprised what material these fellow Italians would bring.  I was also a bit anxious about the female vocalist.  But fear not, cause Sara Squadrani is a wonderful singer. Do not expect some opera like singer, like Sharon Den Adel brings in Without Temptation, or the all too many clones that have sprung up after Within Temptation had its first successes.  Of course the cliches of the genre are repeated, as you might expect, but due to the female vocals - and I must say for an Italian lady Sara's English is not too bad, give it a special touch.

Next to that the musical component is also flawless, with the usual combination of great epic metal songs, mixed with medieval touches, folk etc.  Especially the keyboard parts are worth mentioning. A little background to the band.  It was founded in 2007 by keyboardist Daniele Mazza, and initially played the local scene, with quite some success.  In 2008 they recorded a 5 track demo titled "Trailer" (of the Black Crystal Sword Saga).  Finally in 2009 they started the recordings of this first album.
Being an epic band it's quite normal that their songs are about magic, dragons, heroes etc. I mean, what else could they write about....  the bees and the flowers ?

A fantastic album for this band.  May they continue in the same vein.

95/100

Erik Morren.