Kaledon - Antillius: The King of the Light

Kaledon Antillius: The King of the Light cover
Kaledon
Antillius: The King of the Light
Scarlet Records
2014
6.5
Kaledon, are an Italian power metal band that has been around since before the turn of the millennium and started putting out albums shortly thereafter. In only twelve years since their debut they have managed a rather impressive eight (including this one) albums. Their style is power metal, with symphonic and slightly prog sensibilities, as they do employ a lot of keyboards that however, remain blanketed under the guitars, with the sounds chosen for them almost always being either guitar like, or dump enough to not come too much to the fore. They seem to have achieved a decent production and to have an adequate, singer in Marco Pallazi who style, is not entirely Italian, but also seems to have some faint Teutonic hints. There’s also a nice duet with a female singer Angela Di Vincenzo on track no4, “Elisabeth”...
 
“Antillius” narrates the life of the King of Kaledon, one of the characters that the band introduced with their previous “Legend of the Forgotten Reign” saga and through some twelve songs (two of which are marked as bonuses?) it tells of the story of the eponymous king. I have little doubt in my mind that a series of albums each dedicated to different members of the royal household and near circles might follow in the next few years. It’s more or less what you would expect, a fairly decent band in the style, that manages to craft a fairly decent album in the given style. Being a concept it’s a tad more difficult to dissect it and pick tracks, but I’d say that the album manages to avoid the pitfall of too many albums, which is to put all its strong tracks in the beginning or the end, so it manages to have an even flow and keep the listeners interest throughout.
 
The point here is, if you are a big fan of the genre. If you like Italian style power metal, chances are you’ll love this, if the idea alone makes you sick, you’ll hate them. I’ve somewhat outgrown the style and they are not the best representatives of it ever, (without being bad at all) so I stand divided. Give it a listen and judge for yourselves.