Rhapsody

Symphony of Enchanted Lands 2: The Dark Secret

Good, but not as good as the previous ones

Review Score:

(6/10)
I have been a great fan of rhapsody for some time now, i've allways described their music as pure geniousity, they have been the only band who mixed orchestrated choirs and symphonic elements in a good way, and they allways had a certain power in their music, more then any other band...

Their 2 previous albums "Dawn of victory" and "Power of the dragonflames" have allways been my 2 favorites power metal albums, they featured mostly fast powerfull songs that flow perfectly one after the other... in all of them there was a story, but it was built on the music, not the music built on it...

in this new release, the whole album focus on the story, but it flows very slowly, and listening to it from the begining is quit a challenge... the intro is too long, and there are far too many slow songs which i find quit boring next to the fast, powerfull songs, parts like "Erian mystical rhymes" are good, but not as good as the tracks from the previous albums, and the classical orchestra here takes over and fills more space then the actuall band... which can be quite annoying. and it takes about a hundred listens to get used to. the story is more deep here, but takes over the music.

everything here is harder to swallow, and for my opinion, it's just not the rhapsody i'm used to... true, it's more advanced, but too advanced for my taste.

the part that really grabed me is actually "Nightfall on the grey mountains", the last song, a short one, but a VERY good one.
epics like "Sacred power of raging winds" and "the last angels call" are good, even very good", but still, doesn't have the touch that the 2 last albums had.

my advice to you is: NEVER get this cd as you're first rhapsody experience, is you're allready into the band then you'll probably get it anyway, and don't get me wrong, it is a good album, but not as good as the other ones, certainly not as powerfull, and it's a very hard cd to listen to, especially on the first listenings...

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