Customer Reviews

Frozen Tears of Angels

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After getting a contractual cornholing from Joey Demaio and Magic Circle music, and being stuck in legal limbo for almost half a decade, Rhapsody are back with one of the best releases of their career and certainly the best since 2002s Power of the Dragonflame, this reviewers previous favorite of theirs. Frozen Tears is a near perfect album without a single weak track on it with a nice diversity , you have several fairly straight-up symphonic power metal numbers, such as Sea of Fate and Raging Starfire, an Italian Folk song type number, one of the best ballads they have ever done: Lost in Cold Dreams, but the real highlight of this album is track 4, Reign of Terror, one of the most bombastic, symphonic powerful songs they have ever recorded, it has everything but the kitchen sink: melody, catchy riff,sheer heaviness, symphonic bobasity, and a dash of black metal. This bands lyrics and subject matter have always been, in my opinion, cheesier than all the lasagna in Italy, but I listen to them for their musicianship and musical craftsmanship, both of which are stellar on this release, unlike the last two albums that I found to be lackluster and unmemorable. If you are already a fan you can pick this up without hesitation. If you are a curious metal head, I can tell you this will easily be one of the best releases of 2010, so check it out.

Rhapsody's best release since Dawn of Victory. There are still some of the overly dramatic-narrations in some tracks, but this album delivers some of the best and most memorable songs since legendary tracks like Emerald Sword, Holy Thunderforce, and Dawn of Victory

I will preface this by saying that Rhapsody (of Fire) is probably my favorite band, so I may be a bit biased.

This is one of the those albums that you put in and have to listen to in its correct order, much like most other Rhapsody albums. Unlike other Rhapsody of Fire albums, it does not have an obvious "Glorious Fanfare" song that characterized their sound for many fans, such as Emerald Sword, Wisdom of the Kings, or Power of the Dragonflame. It is different from previous titles, focusing more on a guitar-oriented sound with occasional symphonic backing rather than relying heavy on the symphonic parts. This makes it the band's most technically intense album to date. I'll admit my first time through, I would have given this only four stars, but after listening to it at greater length, the depth and musicianship in the songs really comes through. Every member of the band is showcased in some way, and the solo in "On the Way to Ainor" is probably Turilli's best playing to date.

The US release had two bonus tracks, a purely instrumental track called "Labyrinth of Madness" that blew me away, even the first time, and a re-recording of the second track, "Sea of Fate" slowed down and made into a ballad which Fabio Lione delivers better than any of his previous works and is my favorite Rhapsody ballad to date.

Overall, it's a spectacular album that, while it may take a while to grow on you, certainly deserves a spot in your collection. 5/5

This album is great! Rhapsody Of Fire is one of those bands that you can buy its albums with your eyes (ears) closed!

It's just as awesome as Rhapsody of Fire.

Anyone who loves Rhapsody will love this album.

Ignorance is the seed from which harshly negative reviews spawn from. Let's ponder this for a minute before we discuss the album at hand. To do so, we need to reach as far back to a band's conception. Bands are composed of people, in particular, unique people with their own voices and opinions. They have chosen to use music as a means to communicate their ideas, and, in turn, albums are created. We're listeners - also people with our own voices and opinions. The difference between us and them is that they write what they want to and we choose what we listen to based on what we like to hear.

Rhapsody [of Fire] is a band composed of people like any other. Its members (particularly main contributors, Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli) share ideas in ways that may come across as unconventional or non-traditional to some, but by no means is it sub-standard. If anything, Rhapsody has gained the appreciation they have from fans over the years for going above and beyond the call of duty in ways few others have. Rhapsody was actually my 5th metal band in 2002 and my first album was the at-the-time new Power of the Dragonflame. I then picked up Symphony of Enchanted Lands and both of the Luca Turilli solo albums before getting myself the The Dark Secret EP + DVD in 2004 that previewed the new saga and the inclusion of Christopher Lee as one of the characters. If ever you want further clarification/elaboration on the band's idea of their expression of - I will again use these words - their voices and opinions, I refer you to watch the 20-or-so-minute documentary on the album. Several band members (as well as Christopher Lee himself, who calls the band "one of the most popular in the world") speak about the band and the then-upcoming Symphony of Enchanted Lands, Part II album: the addition of the orchestra, the ##-piece (can't remember the exact #) choir, and more. What struck me the most and has made me forever view Rhapsody [of Fire] in a different way is the way one of the members (can't remember who) says, when referring to the then-upcoming album, "it's everything but the movie." Think about that. This is what I've been building up the last two paragraphs for. Do Helloween, Gamma Ray, Nightwish, Labyrinth, Dark Moor, Stratovarius (my favorite band, I might add), Hammerfall, Edguy, Manowar, Sonata Arctica, or Primal Fear do this? No. Oh, sure - for brief moments we'll have, for example, Iced Earth's 32-minute Gettysburg video (which is unbelievable and a history lesson in its own way - don't get me wrong). But again and again and again? No. This is what Rhapsody does. This is what they want to do. We're the listeners. If we don't like it, we should be fair enough to look elsewhere for what we want.

Now - and only now - that we have a mutual understanding of Rhapsody of Fire can we begin to discuss their latest album, The Frozen Tears of Angels. First, the objectives: 3rd album of the new saga and since addition of Christopher Lee and the orchestra, debut album with Nuclear Blast (who is notorious for... well... I can't say that in the "objective" section), 7th overall (8th if you count thousand flames), and first album in four years. So the question of "What are they going to give us this time?" surely comes to mind. (That's about it for the objective stuff; music is, after all, a subjective thing, isn't it? If you disagree, reread the first two paragraphs.)

I remember back in May or so of this year watching a youtube promo for the new album and remember saying to myself "Woah! Rhapsody is back!" because everything I had heard since 2004 (The Dark Secret and Triumph or Agony - sadly, I've never heard anything else off of Symphony II other than The Magic of the Wizard's Dream and whatever songs they played when I saw them live in 2005 with Manowar and HolyHell) was far harder to enjoy. Everything that made Rhapsody epic and practically theatrical was there, but there was almost +too+ much of that. One slow song after another and minimal signature Luca Turilli guitar leads/solos served as turn-offs for me (and others, as well). It's hard to describe what I love about Rhapsody to someone who's never really understood them: it's fun as hell, but never cheesy. The person who says "Rhapsody [of Fire]" is just cheesy power metal about elves and dwarves" is one of the most... use your imagination. (Again - if you have a problem with this, reread the first two paragraphs.) That claim would be ignorant on many accounts. Rhapsody [of Fire] fits into power metal because it can't just have its own genre just for it (and maybe Fairyland, if that satisfies some of my readers), but by no means can someone expect to hear what they have come to know "power metal" to be when listening to Rhapsody. There's waaaaaaaay more than power metal going on here. Spoken parts, full songs in Italian, the choir, the orchestra, but more importantly than anything is the story. Since I haven't heard every single Rhapsody album, I'm not going to comment +too+ much on it (`cause I'd be ignorant to do so). But I can say that the story is, as always, far more detailed than what you'd expect in epic metal. Few other bands I'm aware of even have these multi-album sagas going on in their back-catalog. I know Skylark does (at least 1997-2007, but I don't know if the new album will feature our favorite Princess of the Snow character once more), and other bands (ex. Avantasia, Fairyland) will do a couple albums, while still others will do single albums with advanced stories (these are all over the place). What I'm trying to say is that when you're buying a Rhapsody [of Fire] album, you are getting way more than just 55-75 minutes of music. Like I quoted from the DVD, "its everything but the movie."

Some of you are just dying by now wondering when - if ever - I am actually going to talk about the musical content on The Frozen Tears of Angels. Ok, I'll comply. Wonderful intro. Merge Lux Triumphans or In Tenebris or To Magic Horizons with sci-fi/fantasy/action-thriller movie trailers music (the Mozart Dies Irae type) and you've got Dark Frozen World. I much prefer this to the too-extensive, 3:13 Dar Kunor intro of the previous album. Rhapsody of Fire then does something a little out of the ordinary. Recall past Rhapsody and Luca Turilli albums. Singles often don't appear until late on the albums. Demonheart, in particular, occurs as late as track 8 out of 10 on Prophet of the Last Eclipse. But on The Frozen Tears of Angels, our single, Sea of Fate, awaits us to greet us at the gate. On top of that, its pace strikes me as, "Hm... a power metal album opening without one of its fast numbers? The best I've ever seen this pulled off is on Lost Horizon's `Flame to the Ground Beneath'." But its fine. Perhaps Luca and Alex felt they needed to show us they were for real with the return to a more metal and less theatrical musical style. I'm sold. The second single appears at track 4 and is one of three songs featuring some blazing-fast music. And we're talking like Knightrider of Doom speed.

I'm not going to turn the review into a song-by-song analysis. But if you're reading this review trying to determine whether or not you want to purchase the CD, it's 1) a "must" for a Rhapsody fan, 2) a "should" for a seasoned power metal fan (when "power metal" does +not+ refer to the last few Edguy albums), and 3) for everyone else, another fine example of a band going well beyond the call of duty in terms of its means of expressing - one last time - unique voices and opinions.

I do realize this has been quite a lengthy review and I apologize for anyone who had the oven on, but there's a lot to say about a band who has a lot to say, you know?

Ah, another album by Rhapsody, another chapter of Luca Turilli's version of Middle Earth. Not bad at all, but for such a great performer and composer, this just repetitive and starts to bore some of us, plus, somebody please tell Christopher Lee to retire!!!!!!!His "came from the grave" voice does not work any more. I hope this band will try something different next time.

Great stuff as usual, but it felt a little rushed. I am happy to hear something from them as it had been five years.

Simply awesome. Full of sweep-picking arpegios, solos, folk-metal-kind passages, very melodic... The kind of thing I like to listen to when I am coding at 3 a.m. and I need the cheer-up for an entire army.

Enjoyed this CD very much. These guys keep cranking out great music! Impressed with the quick delivery of the CD.