3.0 out of 5 stars
Solid American power metal album, September 28, 2010
This review is from: Quest Eternal (Audio CD)
Quest Eternal is 2005 the debut album from American power metal band Aspire. The New York-based band plays a pretty straightforward brand of classically-influenced power metal along the lines of Rhapsody of Fire, Dionysus and some of the other bands in the Italian power metal scene.
Quest Eternal is a pretty standard power metal album. It's not overly melodic like the German stuff, but rather focuses on grand epics, fantasy and literature-based lyrics ("Lost Forevermore" is based on Dante's "Inferno" for example), and classical elements. The musicianship is quite good, and the vocals are solid. Ryan Metzger sounds a bit like Helstar's James Rivera (minus the higher-octave wailing), but his vocals seem buried in the mix. Actually, I suspect that the production job did more harm than good in many respects. The lyrics tend to be on the melodramatic side (closer "Final Serenade" is one example), but at least there isn't any cheesy, Rhapsody-style narration!
I got burned out on "lesser-tier" power metal a few years ago, so Quest Eternal just isn't doing anything for me the way new music from Blind Guardian, Mob Rules and Kamelot does. If you're an (extremely) dedicated power metal fan, then by all means give Aspire a try. They're not breaking any new ground, but if Italian-style power metal is your thing you could do a lot worse.
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