Customer Reviews

Prophecies

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

 

 

I have not once thought this CD was that great. In my opinion, this is one of the weakest CDs in my collection...... I mean, among true metal. The opener is a fantastic song and ranks up with the best of the best. Like a Paradise is a wonderous ballad. The problem is the epic title track! This song is constantly building up to get fast, but doesn't ever!!! This song goes nowhere!!! I love that opener and the ballad is quite enjoyable, but the vocalist and lack of atmosphericness just turns me off. I don't like this guy from Firewind either. So its not just the music. Keyboards, when apparent, are more melodic than they should be. I don't know how such a sound gets created - these are great keys! But, they are few and far between as well as too strong for the music. The album is about an hour long, which also bugs me. I would be happy if the CD stopped before the title track.

Because of the singer, I once compared this band to Grave Digger. This is barely a melodic power metal band. Its almost full-blown power metal.

Here's another huge complaint. I have the hardest time liking Stratovarius's song "Will the Sun Rise" because it follows the hyper-speed (and hyper good, I might add) "Father Time". Upbeat songs die when following songs like this!!! On The Prophecies, we see the same problem again.

So do what you wish. This is just my opinion. I only love 2 songs (Eternity is very good, but not great) and would only recommend it to millionaires and those who like taking chances. Go look for Ivory Tower, Fairyland, Grave Digger, and Secret Sphere before this. Kenziner has a lot of maturing to do the way I see it.

When you get the time, go read some of my other reviews. I'm a little scared to ask you to say if this review helped you or not, but hey - everyone can think what they want. Don't forget that I LOVE European metal - I'm not some diehard American crap metal fan.

I would easily have given this album 5 stars if it weren't for the lousy vocalist ! Jarno, the finnish guitarist may have learnt a lot from the likes of Malmsteen and Chastain but in my oppinion has a clearer sound and he is no megalomaniac. The songwriting are so-so, the music is excellent. This is Heavy/Power metal and nothing else...

This album was a good find actually. I enjoy the great keyboard work and the g-tar work is excellent as well. the vocals arent too bad but they take some time to getting used to. The thing that brings this album down are the ballads. The one, Trail of Tears is altogether bad, but the other two are not too shabby when it comes to ballads. The last track is incredible and is 10 minutes so your getting your moneys worth. The only reason why i gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because im comparing it to Blind Guardian and Rhapsody which reign over Kenziner.

The debut Kenziner album had some great playing but a bunch of issues as well. With this album progress is made on most of those problem areas. Firstly the band this time feels a bit more focussed and more of a band rather than just a project and this enhances the atmosphere of proceedings.

Secondly the addition of a full time keyboardist and here the keys don't intrude so painfully and sound part of the music. They are also less prissy than they were for much of the debut and they don't sound like a guitar solo all through songs. Which means when the keys and Jarno do trade off against each other the effect is far more pleasing in the way that Malmsteen/Johannson trades offs were back in the day.

Thirdly the retention of Stephen Fredrick on vocals with his Graham Bonnet inflected vocals adds to the sense that the band were starting to get a legacy going. Certainly he sounds more the ring master here.

And lastly the standard of song has improved. A number of tunes on the debut sounded utterly gutless but here many are really rippin' it up in some sort of amalgam between power metal (this is an album from 1999 remember) and traditional metal values. And it's a good combination.

So yeah, not an act above criticism given the derivative nature of much of what is going on but here the band have gelled and with the production job of David T Chastain also coming on board for the party this album is a four star release for those who want to check out a guitar dude who can play those neo classical widdly bits but who sounds like he's in a more democratic setting than those kind of blokes usually end up in.

I bought this CD for two reasons. The first was because the Lead vocalist is a favorite of mine and the second was because of the price. The opening song builds you up and you expect to hear a great follow up to it but... The keyboards kick in. This album is boring and the keys are aggravating. I hate overuse of keyboards. So, for the price I guess I got what I payed for. Check out Firewind for something similiar but MUCH cleaner sounding and more creative.