(Power Metal) Power Symphony - Lightbringer - 2000, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Man this sucks. This suuuuuucks. This sucks in the way where it's like after a few seconds of listening someone just punched you in the gut. The shittiness actually knocks the wind out of you. Releases like this are what gave Pavement its reputation as a bargain bin label and it's completely deserved even if every release but this one was solid fucking gold. 'Lightbringer' fucking SUCKS.

Okay, I guess this would fall into the shitty flower metal quality, but I'm not willing to lump it in with that because I like bands like Sonata Arctica and shit a lot. Power Symphony is similarly flaccid and gay like Stratovarius, but the difference between those two is that bands like Stratovarius concentrate on making memorable, catchy, fun music, whereas Power Symphony make power metal like they're baking a cake they read about in a cooking magazine once. I'm truly amazed that I've found an album here that manages to conform to even the most minute stereotypes of power metal yet inherit absolutely none of that genre's dedication to fun, catchy melodies, and epic song structures. This is the muzak of power metal. It is unbearably shitty.

The songs are excruciatingly repetitive; I think the whole pre-chorus/chorus section of 'The Way Of The Sword' is repeated three or four times, and each time it seems to take fucking forever. The rest of the songs seem to follow suit with only a few riffs each but an unlimited number of cock rock solos or keyboard passages provided in order to pad them out. Michela D'Orlando is operatic yet sounds completely unenthusiastic about what she's singing (as would I in her position) and the rest of the band follows suit. Even the production seems to lack enthusiasm, with guitars thrown on the back burner in favor of literally everything else coming right up front.

There's few albums that feel longer than this one; I think I've sat through it three, maybe four times, and yet on this listen I am completely unable to remember any of it except for how long it takes to end every time, with its dime-store synth patches, obnoxious Foreigner-ripoff riffs and droning, crawling, trudging song structures. This is truly the bottom of the barrel for power metal, so mediocre it can't even give me a rage-hardon. This fucking sucks. I hate you, Italy.

Marco Cecconi Guitars, Keyboards on "The Necromancer" and "Song of Men"
Lino Sistu Drums (line-up)
Marco Volpe Keyboards
Fabio Iannone Bass
Michela D'Orlando Vocals