Showing posts with label Rhapsody Of Fire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rhapsody Of Fire. Show all posts

1/03/2015

CD Review: Eternal Dream - Reign Of The Skies EP

Note: If you have a own band or project that you think might fit in well here for a review or as a presentation / introduction please drop me a line or two in a E-Mail. Please see my profile for my E-Mail adress. I appreciate new suggestions very much so please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm also interested in band news / updates / tourdates so please keep the stuff coming. Thanks!

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Short introduction

Eternal Dream was founded back in 2007. The band sees their roots in european power metal bands in the style of Rhapsody (Of Fire), Nightwish or Stratovarius. At the beginning of 2008 they closed the line-up and began to prepare their first demo, published at the end of that year with two songs: "Frozen Salanthine" and "Waters of Reality".

In a year and a half they placed in the metal scene of Málaga, with several concerts and high ratings in recognized contests like "Málaga Crea Rock", among hundreds of bands, and "Marbepop".
Their first EP "The Seed of Naryll", totally self-produced by Niko Hartmann (also guitar player of the band), is published in September 2009.

(c) by Eternal Dream, used with kind permission

In the summer of 2010, Álvaro Sabín entered the band as lead guitarist and they began to prepare their first LP. "The Fall of Salanthine". The record has been released in 2011 and for first time in the band history the album is also available as a original pressed CD. The band ever since continued their work on new material and has released their brand new EP "Reign of the skies" at Christmas 2014.

Summary / Player / Download Link

This EP has a superb quality, no question. If you like bands like Epica or Nightwish you should go straight on forward and listen and download the EP. As a addition to the mentioned bands Eternal Dream keep things more straight forward. Where some of the other bands sometimes tend to fiddle around a bit too much the spanish band comes more to the point and keeps it soundwise a bit heavier than compareable bands. That's what makes them to be preferable to those acts in my eyes if you like music to keep pushing forward instead of playing around too much with single parts and elements.

The download comes totally free of charge directly from the bands website.. This is already a reason to be happy to be given such a fine piece of music. Looking closer into the provided zip File you'll recognise that it even holds far more than "only" the mp3 files. It comes completely with a text interior sheet, something I've seen very rarely even in comercial releases. What a nice gesture! In addition there are's also a front and a back cover included in the releases. All files come with the maximum possible quality data rate for mp3 at 320 kb/s.

Don't miss out to follow the further band activities on their social site like Facebook, Twitter or myspace.




If you want to give something back for what you've taken or support the band on their further way you may buy the first full album "The fall of Salanthine" on a physical CD including a 16 page booklet for only 5 Euro plus shipping and handling through the band's website.

Track-by-Track Review

Reign of the Skies
The keyboards at the beginning already tell the maintheme of the song. It's a midtemo song with a direct and clear riff and a blast refrain. Very impressive, high pitch vocals that take you to another world. It is like you're living in a epic story like in a movie such as The Lord of the Rings. Good music to bring your thoughts on a different level far away from the world of everyday troubles.

Reign of The Skies (instrumental)
Of course the vocals are missing in this one. It reveals the instrumental epicness of the track in all it's beauty. You get a sharper look on the aggressive, dark and heavy riffs used in this track than put a contrary to the harmonic vocals. In addition more of the keyboards can be heard making it clearer which role they have in the band's sound.

Neoclassical Fantasy
The one comes in sharp contrast to the other two tracks. The opening riff already makes it clear that it is a much different song. The track is much faster and the vocals are rougher and set in a higher tone. A very edgy piece of music.  After the rough opening the song breaks like a fragile building and builds up slowly again piece by piece up to the chorus followed up by a long solo section. Afterwards it remains a fast, heavy and direct song. The majestic chorus ends the whole song and the EP.

3/05/2014

Free download of songs at AFM V.I.P. Area

Wow, a new month has already begun! So that means checking out what should be up next. It also means looking for what to spend on the money. The costs for life have increased in my eyes over the last years. But surely no one wants to live without music, right? ;-) So what to do if you want to listen to some new stuff?

One solution I ran across is the V.I.P area on the AFM-Records website. The label is well known for having a lot of bands under their banner that are smaller or are on the way to get bigger including acts like Brainstorm, Fear Factory, Mob Rules, Sinner and the like. So clicking on the link will take you to the mentioned V.I.P. area. All you need to do there is to register shortly with a valid Email adress and the activation code that is displayed at the welcome page. Once registered by verifying the registration by clicking the activation link in the email you'll receive you're in!

After that you only need to login with your registered E-Mail adress and will have access to the possibility to download complete songs from the AFM rooster for free. There's one more good message: the label refreshes the song selection after some weeks. So as the time passes by all you need to do is to come back to the V.I.P. area, login again and you'll see a new track selection for download. Nice, right? :-) At the moment I'm typing these lines the label offers the following tracks for download:
  1. Iron Savior - Burning Heart04:39
  2. Words Of Farewell - Beauty In Passing04:53
  3. Silent Force - Caught In Their Wicked Game04:40
  4. Crystal Viper - Prophet Of The End05:36
  5. Ektomorf - Numb and Sick04:42 
  6. Lake Of Tears - Taste Of Hell (live)03:53 
  7. Rhapsody Of Fire - Rising From Tragic Flames06:16
  8. Truth Corroded - They Are Horror03:22 
  9. Black Messiah - Jötunheim06:57 
  10. Iron Mask - Rock Religion04:38 
  11. Epysode - The Arch05:15 
  12. Human Fortress - The Chosen One04:55 
  13. Eden's Curse - Break The Silence04:38 
  14. Onslaught - Chaos Is King04:06 
  15. Vanishing Point - Distant Is The Sun04:47
Great! My choice feel on the tracks from Iron Saviour, Silent Force, Crystal Viper, Ektomorf, Rhapsody of Fire and Vanishing Point. Have to say all of the songs rocked so far, but especially the one's from Crystal Viper and Rhapsody of Fire found my sympathy. 

Like the old-school sound on the Crystal Viper track while the Rhapsody of Fire track turned out surprisingply variable. Very different and more direct compared to the stuff they did put out the last time. So which tracks did you choice for download and did you enjoy listening to them? 

And do you know more labels that do offer such a service? If you do, please drop me a line here in the comments section or let me know through Email. Please check out my profile to see my Email adress. Thanks!

11/02/2012

7 Seals


It's often nice to have band suggestions from friends or contacts. Those people most likely know what might be of interest for you. It was like this when a friend of mine came around with 7 Seals, a band I'd never heard of before.

And to be honest it turned out to be a blast! The band can be said to be a combination of bands like Rhapsody Of Fire and Blind Guardian, so they do play powerfull riffs mixed with blasting drums and vocal hooklines that will you make remember even a long time after you've heard the songs.

What I like so much about this band is the fact for me that they keep things a bit more straight forward. There are of couse this these church like chorus elements but things never turn out to get on your nerves because you know that the next neckbreaking fast riff is waiting around the next corner. That makes this band a bit more enjoyable if you like it a bit more straight forward.

Here's the song "To forests wild and free" for you to check out:

To forests wild and free

If you want to hear more of the album "Moribund" then visit the media section of the website, it has a fine player with all the songs of the album.

Give the band's website a chance and surf to it here.