The Storyteller
Sacred Fire
Dark Legacy Music
2015
The Storyteller is a Swedish power metal band that has been active for a number of years and “Sacred Fire” is their sixth overall full album – they also have an EP. They are a pretty standard classic metal meets power metal band, that’s inherently fairly melodic. They have quite sufficient chops and are not too bad overall, but when it comes to songwriting, they seem to lag a little behind, with most of their songs, being quite average and not terribly memorable.
L.G. Persson, their vocalist, has this voice that reminded me of Messiah Marcolin in a way, but it is nowhere near as impressive, without the resonance that the crazy “monk” had. Rather thin and occasionally a little squeaky, on the top of his range in fact. He’s far from terrible, but combined with the bands rather uneventful songwriting, the results are hardly exciting.
Some of the faster songs like “Serpent Eyes” and “Sons of the North” are a relative highlights. There’s a semi ballad in “In Search for Treasures, Stones and Gold”, which is also not too bad, with LG channeling a bit of Biff Byford here. Also the pirate inspired “Curse of the Seven Seas” has a playful bunch of riffs and is not too bad. And the final two songs “Let Your Spirit Fly” and “God of War” are quite different to the rest of the songs, by being considerably faster and more hard hitting, the former more melodic, while the latter more epic. That style seems to fit them a bit more actually.
Without being too special, The Storyteller, deliver an album of straightforward metal, that would not drive you wild, but does not deserve utter dismissal. Give it a listen if you’re a heavy/power fan and see if you like it.
L.G. Persson, their vocalist, has this voice that reminded me of Messiah Marcolin in a way, but it is nowhere near as impressive, without the resonance that the crazy “monk” had. Rather thin and occasionally a little squeaky, on the top of his range in fact. He’s far from terrible, but combined with the bands rather uneventful songwriting, the results are hardly exciting.
Some of the faster songs like “Serpent Eyes” and “Sons of the North” are a relative highlights. There’s a semi ballad in “In Search for Treasures, Stones and Gold”, which is also not too bad, with LG channeling a bit of Biff Byford here. Also the pirate inspired “Curse of the Seven Seas” has a playful bunch of riffs and is not too bad. And the final two songs “Let Your Spirit Fly” and “God of War” are quite different to the rest of the songs, by being considerably faster and more hard hitting, the former more melodic, while the latter more epic. That style seems to fit them a bit more actually.
Without being too special, The Storyteller, deliver an album of straightforward metal, that would not drive you wild, but does not deserve utter dismissal. Give it a listen if you’re a heavy/power fan and see if you like it.