Magic Kingdom
Savage Requiem
AFM Records
2015
Magic Kingdom is another band that involves/is led by Dushan Petrossi of Iron Mask, another band from Belgium, that came to some real prominence after acquiring the services of Mark Boals, a certain Yngwie Malsteen former collaborator, that raised the quality of their average neoclassical inspired metal on the two albums he participated in “considerably”, in essence putting them on the map and switching them from Finish label Lion Music (which we havenbt heard of from, in ages) to a more visible and active one like AFM.
The bizarre thing is that Petrossi, seems to be active in three bands, with different vocalists, that all or more of less, playing neoclassical inspired metal, with only slight deviations. Magic Kingdom is the more Europower flavored one and slightly more typically metal oriented one, but the songs tend to be reserved in terms of tempo, which is a rather good thing in their case. However losing Olaf Hayer (Dionysus, Turilli etc) is bad, but they seem to have replaced him with Uruguayan born, Christian Palin, who was also briefly in Adagio, as was his predecessor also Latin American (Brazilian) Gus Monsanto, and who Kelly Sundown Carpenter, (Darkology, Outworld) also seems to have substituted, for an album, that so far hasn’t materialized since a demo was released some three years ago... Just as he has seemingly substituted the aforementioned Mark Boals in Iron mask! Oh dear, that vocalist business sure seems to be quite some (blood)thirsty work!
“Savage Requiem”, is a very formulaic album, with decent enough performances, but mediocre songwriting. And when Palin’s performance, decent but generic as they come fail to lift the songs, with his vocals, the whole effort, sort of stagnates and the blame does not entirely lie, upon Palin’s shoulders. The whole thing feels at best like a valiant attempt, with good production value, that however fails to impress because of its unimaginative songwriting. The Dungeon & Dragons, type of lyrics, make this feel like the cheesiest “heavy” Rhapsody material, with less flair in the solos, a far more mediocre singer and just the same amount of mozzarella. Of course if you like the style, your opinion, might be a bit better. I had a hard time choosing a song, that I felt was better, but the chorus of “With Fire and Sword” seemed decent enough, to make it the “hit” of the album. Also the acoustic version of “Dragon Princess” is much better than the original, which has Palin struggling to be heard. And the thing is – I consider him to be a decent enough vocalist, but he seems unable to breathe life into the material, which quite frankly is a bit flakey to begin with. Only for Europower nuts or fans of the band.
The bizarre thing is that Petrossi, seems to be active in three bands, with different vocalists, that all or more of less, playing neoclassical inspired metal, with only slight deviations. Magic Kingdom is the more Europower flavored one and slightly more typically metal oriented one, but the songs tend to be reserved in terms of tempo, which is a rather good thing in their case. However losing Olaf Hayer (Dionysus, Turilli etc) is bad, but they seem to have replaced him with Uruguayan born, Christian Palin, who was also briefly in Adagio, as was his predecessor also Latin American (Brazilian) Gus Monsanto, and who Kelly Sundown Carpenter, (Darkology, Outworld) also seems to have substituted, for an album, that so far hasn’t materialized since a demo was released some three years ago... Just as he has seemingly substituted the aforementioned Mark Boals in Iron mask! Oh dear, that vocalist business sure seems to be quite some (blood)thirsty work!
“Savage Requiem”, is a very formulaic album, with decent enough performances, but mediocre songwriting. And when Palin’s performance, decent but generic as they come fail to lift the songs, with his vocals, the whole effort, sort of stagnates and the blame does not entirely lie, upon Palin’s shoulders. The whole thing feels at best like a valiant attempt, with good production value, that however fails to impress because of its unimaginative songwriting. The Dungeon & Dragons, type of lyrics, make this feel like the cheesiest “heavy” Rhapsody material, with less flair in the solos, a far more mediocre singer and just the same amount of mozzarella. Of course if you like the style, your opinion, might be a bit better. I had a hard time choosing a song, that I felt was better, but the chorus of “With Fire and Sword” seemed decent enough, to make it the “hit” of the album. Also the acoustic version of “Dragon Princess” is much better than the original, which has Palin struggling to be heard. And the thing is – I consider him to be a decent enough vocalist, but he seems unable to breathe life into the material, which quite frankly is a bit flakey to begin with. Only for Europower nuts or fans of the band.