Customer Reviews

Prophet of the Last Eclipse

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those familiar with Luca Turilli's work, you know that he likes his music big, huge, bombastic, and sweeping in composition - which is both a turn off for some metal fans and the reason a good deal of his audience is rabid about his work. Love or hate his material, one would have a hard time denying the strength of his melodic sense and compositions, along with the fact that throughout his career he has kept upping the ante, making the music bigger and bigger and bigger.......

And then, there was Prophet of the Last Eclipse.

On this, Luca's second solo album, the sound has gone so through the roof it can barely even be seen anymore. This is big, this is powerful, this is in your face, but this is also stretching a few boundaries of what can even be called metal...rather, the music on Prophet of the Last Eclipse sounds like a hyperactive symphony from outer space, with a metal band guesting to back it up. There are almost 30 choir members on the album, in 4 seperate choirs, along with the String Quintet of Hamburg, Germany, plus a timpani player. Add to this Luca's normal guitar/bass/drums/keyboards/vocals band and his brand of epic composing, and you have one of the biggest and most pompous albums to come out since.. well, the last Rhapsody release actually. But this may be even more giant sounding, and the best thing about it is; it's of the same quality.

Prophet of the Last Eclipse is a conceptual work, telling an odd story revolving around love and apocalyptic prophecy on a distant planet. While not on the same level as a successful author's material, Luca manages to craft a short and interesting, as well as even a bit original (for science fiction), tale.
The album is also a nice evolution in Luca Turilli's sound in ways; first, as aforementioned, the album sounds like a symphony with a metal band as opposed to a metal band with a symphony. In the booklet, it's learned that Luca restrained himself guitarwise on this album in order to let the compositions and the classical instrumation come through a lot more. For this, he gains extra respect from me and what's good is that contrary to what most people would fear, the music is actually enhanced by a little less guitar. There are never any guitar parts battling with string parts for volume or attention, or any loose ends on the album, every part of the huge arrangements is placed within the songs tastefully and professionally. Although, once in a while the rhythm guitar work can get a bit lost in the large mix, but it doesn't detract a great amount - that's how big the orchestration is here. Second, there is now a good amount of a surprising element added to this music - an electronic influence ranging from techno-esque to dark and ambient....something of a crash course in awkwardness or metal suicide in print, yet on this album the new electronic elements are placed absolutely without flaw, meshing perfectly with the choirs, strings, and metal guitars and drums. This becomes apparent as soon as Aenigma, the album intro, hits with a dark sounding programmed beat that soon melts into one with the sounds and rhythms of the European Renaissance-era styled choir. After 2 minutes, the intro explodes into War of the Universe, an excellent speedy song with great vocals from Olaf Hayer and a shredding, aggressive violin/cello riff. Yes, that's 'violin/cello riff', and it shreds well right along with the thunderous drumwork and subtle little synth bleeps and bloops underneath the verses. Nice melodic guitar solo from Luca here as well. Next is Rider of the Astral Fire, where the creativity of the sound and Turilli's sense of melody really start to create some huge sparks. Excellent programming, rhythm guitar riffs, and even a good use of a children's choir can be found here. The first minute of the song is also sheer melodic brilliance, with a slow, pulsing, and dark intro building up to a galloping and positively glorious sounding viola/violin harmony with a heavy riff underpinning, taking a breather with some light keys before going into the first verse. Fantastic. Zaephyr Skies' Theme is a slower, ballad like instrumental with a gentle electronic pulse and some beautiful female vocalizations. Another major high point is the album's single, Demonheart, with some menacing programming, slashing guitar work, and an unbelievable chorus punctuated by a powerfully contrasting choir. New Century's Tarentella is another good showcase of the album's creativity, being a power-metalized rendition of classical Italian tarentella style music, though lacking a bit in the overall songwriting department. The album closer, the epic title track, is nothing short of stunning in parts and though with some weak links in the middle section, is a fitting climax for the album. Starting with the same Renaissance-styled choir heard singing in Aenigma, the song soon morphs into a ball of pure intensity, fading into a fanatical keyboard part and bursting into a crushingly heavy double bass drum attack, layered with orchestral strikes and a Latin-chanting male choir that brings almost frightening shivers. The verses also work well, after the song slows to mid pace, the female vocal in the middle part after the almost gothic keyboards is perfect, and the song closes with the same intense opening which slows down to a final, peaceful sounding Latin verse by the choir.

Overall this is one of the best, truly symphonic metal releases around. There is a track or two hindered by weaker songwriting, such as Timeless Oceans which has a few awkward melodies, and the album can also tend to give off a feeling of wanting more, but this is an album more than worthy of attention if you're not put off by the amount of symphonic elements involved. Superb.

Rhpasody's guitarrist tried to be more creative this time and he really had it on. His first album was just the same as Rhapsody but with poorer vocals. In this second album he mixes science fiction with fantasy. The songs that most stand out are Demonheart, War of the Universe, Rider of the Astral Fire and Prophet of the last eclipse.
If you like symphonic power metal try this Cosmic Metal as defined by Luca Turilli and you'll surely love it.

Since i heard for the first time to Rhapsody, they catched me instantabily... So i bought the first solo album of Luca and it like me just at the same than Rhapsody's!. I wait for this new opus from Luca too much, and i am so happy to realize that he is making more amazing things... This album has a kind of little madnes form Luca, he is just a genius!!! His skills as a composer even got better and as guitarist too.... I am so sorprised how the big music companies haven't yet discoverd the maestro.... the Man.... The Artist,,, Thank you Luca for make such a beautyfull art!!!

I can't express enough how much I wanted to rate this album a 5, but I have my reasons for docking the point.

First off, if you're a Rhapsody fan and you haven't yet bought a Luca Turilli album, let me set aside any fears of disapointment, buy this album now. The best songs on this album rate just as high as the best Rhapsody songs. Which I have to admit surprised me. The music is the same genre with some different effects, but you can tell Luca writes what he loves, there is no big gap between his work with Rhapsody and his solo albums. It's good to see there are still people out there true to what they're doing.

One other comparison you might be wondering about is the vocalist. To be perfectly honest I prefer Luca's singer Olaf Hayer to that of Rhapsody's Fabio Lione. His range is nearly as impressive, although he doesn't have the full dramatic range that Fabio has. However, his words are crystal clear and the lyrics are easy to understand, something I appreciate.

Now, for the music. I think Luca made an error on this album. There is a song (Track 9) called New Century's Tarantella which is about as out of place on this album as a Phil Collins song (ok, maybe not but still). It just doesn't work, at all. The music is too altered and the lyrics seem inconsiquential to the story. To me it interrupts a wonderful album and annihilates the flow that seems to have been calculated so carefully on every other track. The song isn't bad, and I think it would have been great on the Demonheart single or any other album with bonus material. And it's the reason I rated this album a 4. It just seems a sloppy addition to bring the song count up to 10.

Tracks 5 (The Age of Mystic Ice)& 7 (Timeless Oceans)are good but lack the intensity and urgency the rest of the songs have.

Track 3 (Rider of the Astral Fire)& 6 (Prince of the Starlight) are great tunes that really remind me of Rhapsody, especially the Dawn of Victory album.

Track 4 (Zaephyr Skies' Theme) works for me, it's a slow melancholy instrumental. I mention it seperately because some reviewers have pointed it out as a weak link. I actually think it works well. It's placed well too. In addition to Timeless Oceans (another slow song) there is enough contrast on the album to keep the heavier, faster songs from losing their intensity. Which actually would be an argument for the placement of New Century's Tanrantella, as it breaks up the two heaviest songs on the album quite nicely, but I still think something else should have been found to go there.

The Intro (Track 1), Aenigma and Track 2 (War of the Universe), which it flows into are excellent songs, but track 8 (Demonheart) really takes it to another level. More so, once it's heard within the context of this album and you know what's going on during the song. When I heard Demonheart I was sure I had found the best song on the album, easily comparable to Rhapsody's Knightrider of Doom on their latest effort.

However, if you really want to experience the height of Luca's solo efforts crank up Prophet of the Last Eclipse. This song is UNBELIEVABLE ! I still can't comprehend how Luca manages to keep writing songs that are increasingly more intense and powerful than the ones before. Add to the music the incredible lyrics, which finish the first part of this tale and Olaf's clear vocals and this song is the most incredible song I've ever heard. EVER !

The best part of all this, is that I have no doubt that the next Rhapsody album and Luca's next album will ....ahem...eclipse (sorry) even this incredible effort.

Although I gave the album a 4, I couldn't recommend it any higher. If you like this type of music, you MUST own this album. And even if this isn't normally your thing, try it anyway. My fiancee for instance isn't a big metal fan, but likes this album much better than any Rhapsody album, mainly because she can understand the lyrics and easily follow the story, which is good, albiet a bit cliched at times.

Luca Turilli is the songwriter and guitarist for the power metal band Rhapsody, and "Prophet of the Last Eclipse" would not be too out of place in Rhapsody's catalogue. There are really only a few differences. Turilli incorporates some electronic elements in this album, which give it more of a sci-fi feel. And the vocalist is different. He's good, though I prefer Fabio Lione. One good thing is that there's no narration. The cheese level is still pretty high, but not so high as it gets in Rhapsody.

The bottom line is that if you like Rhapsody, you will almost certainly enjoy Luca Turilli's solo efforts, and if you don't like Rhapsody, you should probably stay away. This brand of power metal is for those of us who like things over-the-top every once in awhile, and don't mind cheesy lyrics as long as the music is strong.

Prophet of the Last Eclipse was the second solo album from Rhapsody (of Fire) guitarist/songwriter/DungeonMaster Luca Turilli. I never really understood why these solo Luca albums were necessary, given the fact that they were nearly identical to what he was doing with Rhapsody, but the result was twice as much power metal, so I didn't complain. Besides, I enjoy the first solo Luca album (King of the Nordic Twilight) as much (if not more than) any Rhapsody album, thanks in large part to vocalist Olaf Hayer, who really nails this kind of epic dramatic stuff.

With Prophet of the Last Eclipse, Luca stretches his talents and imagination to come up with an album about, um, robots I guess. Honestly I don't see a lot of differences between this supposedly sci-fi epic and Luca's previous fantasy epic. They sound exactly the same to me. You could probably switch tracks from both albums without noticing any difference. I suppose that's not a bad thing if you really like Luca's brand of Italian power metal, but at some point that kind of thing grows old, and this is the album where that happened for me (Symphony of Enchanted Lands, Vol. 2: The Dark Secret sealed the deal). This is the same kind of grandiose epic symphonic power metal Luca has always delivered, but it just isn't enough to hold my interest any more.

If you're a major Luca Turilli/Rhapsody of Fire fan, you probably won't care how repetitive this album is, and will no doubt enjoy it a great deal. If you're looking for even miniscule signs of growth or progression, you're not going to find it here.

NOTE: The Deluxe Edition of Prophet of the Last Eclipse comes in a nice digipack inside a slipcase, and features a pair of bonus tracks - Dark Comet's Reign and an alternate version of Demonheart with former Angra/Shaman frontman Andre Matos on vocals. If you're a big fan of Luca/Rhapsody, this is definitely the version to get.

Luca turilli is a master of the guitar. He writes all the songs and plays guitar and a little keyboard. It tells a story of a fallen ship and a love that could not be. This is the greatest album of all time and the greatest story. The Prophet of the Last Eclipse will make you rethink your life. Everything Luca touches he turns to gold. Get this album or this world will cease because you dont know what is awesome. I am going to buy another copy of this album just in case something happens to the original. When I am dying I will say hey, blast Luca on the stereo so i can die happy. Olaf's vocals are clear and the drums are phenomenal and Im not even going to comment on the superb guitar mastery. Slap yourself in the face and dont make me tell you to get this album again. DO IT! FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

You will either love or hate this stuff. Pompous, grandiose, glorious, over-the-top and brilliant. Huge chorus, full orchestra, masterful violin playing, and breakneck metal guitar work, all swirled together quite stunningly.

Metallica tried to do this with their S&M album. Some of that album worked great, but most of it felt like a "mashup" rather than a cohesive piece of music. THIS is what they were aiming for.

Imagine if Danny Elfman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Metallica co-wrote a space opera. Yeah. Freakin' awesome. For anyone who loves musicals and metal, this will wonderfully fill both those desires simultaneously.

I'm really impressed. My daughter's favorite albums are System of a Down's "Mesmerize" and the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. She loves Prophet of the Last Eclipse. 'nuff said.

Luca Turilli's new album is not a let down by any means but it can not compare to his first album KING OF THE NORDIC TWILIGHT. As you know Luca is the guitarist for Rhapsody. The knew album incorporates a futuristic feal instead of a knight feal like his other album. Most of the songs are strong but I am the first to admit their are some weak ones. Get this if you like Power metal (Blind Guardian ect.) or speed metal(Stratovarius)but not before you pick up KING OF THE NORDIC TWILIGHT.

Anyone thinking on buying an album of Luca Turilli must hear Rhapsody first, if you like Rhapsody, there's almost a 100% chance that you will like both of the albums of Luca Turilli. This last album, "Prophet of the Last Eclipse", I found it superior that "King of the Northic Twilight". Besides the usual Rhapsody's type of symphonic metal sound, it has a little of techno involved, giving that futuristic sound that the band wanted to provide. A good album; however, some of Rhapsoy's materials (specially the first three Rhapsody albums["Legendary Tales", "Symphony of the Enchanted Lands", "Dawn of Victory"]) are superior to both of the Luca Turilli's albums.