Sara Hammerzmith

Belgium’s melodic power metal heroes Iron Mask with Dushan Petrossi at the reins hasn’t wasted any time this year: First, they re-released their 2010 album “Shadow of the Red Baron” and then embarked on a European tour supporting Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody. Right after tour was finished they started working on new material, as well as introducing new vocalist Valdez. The sixth album is now finished and ready for release, and the result got the name “Diabolica”.

The album opens big – fast, with chewing guitars and cheeky lyrics that are on a fairly common subject – defeating the people who put you down, that doubt you with a “I don’t forgive, I don’t forget”. The album goes a bit up and down – it’s a mixture of fast, light songs, to slow and heavy ones, and it all comes together in the almost fifteen minute long ending song which sorts of serves as a compilation of all the best pieces of the album.

The songs are either accessorized with string orchestras, or shredding guitars, just to get that little extra touch. I think it’s well arranged – you never get the feeling of it’s being too much, which it sometimes has a tendency to do. Over all – it’s a very classic power metal album, even bringing the thought back to Sabaton and HammerFall at certain points. Sadly, it does have it’s weak moments – the titeltrack being the weakest of them all.

For this album, Dushan has focused on more famous characters for his lyrics, and I feel that he’s managed to fit the music to the character – “Galileo” – more on the epic, slower and heavier side while “Oliver Twist” is more on the playful and light side, childlike if you like, despite the lyrics being on the darker side. “March 666” which has a speech by none less than the Führer himself in the middle gives me chills down my spine, not simply because of the speech, but also because the almost intimidating music accompanied to the lyrics. Even “Ararat” – based on the Turkish mountains, have a more oriental touch to it, making this a very interesting album.

With all of this being said, I do think this album is worth a listen. The different elements in the songs keeps the album interesting throughout the album, regardless if you’re a fan of Iron Mask or not.

(Label: AFM Records)

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// Sara

This entry was posted on September 27, 2016 at 10:00 pm and is filed under CDs, Music, Uncategorized with tags afm records, diabolica, in cooperation with, iron mask. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.