Black Wings - Sacred shiver 3.5/5
Reviewed: 12-5-08
Tracklist:
1. Sunset's shades
2. Fire tide
3. Hiding the moon
4. Captive to lies
5. Behind the veil of mind
6. Way down to the ground
7. No chance to get back
8. Waiting the time
9. The magic of dawn
10. Sacred shiver
11. Tarot woman
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Black Wings is a new Italian band, and although they're very young (with none of the members having experience in another well-known band), they were able to sign with Underground Symphony for the release of this full-length debut 'Sacred shiver'. Just like almost all of Underground Symphony's bands, Black Wings is a power metal band (mainly), but their music contains a lot of progressive elements and there are even some passages into hard rock.
Vocally, the band is fronted by Diego Albini, who has a clear and fairly high-pitched voice, and he's extremely similar to the great Alessio Garavello of Arthemis and Power Quest. Actually, generally speaking, the band is comparable overall to Arthemis and Power Quest, but because of the progressive elements, I would throw Wonderland, Vision Divine, Labyrinth, Concept, Wisdom, Helreid and Night Cloud into the pile as well.
'Sacred shiver' thankfully contains a good amount of faster songs, and there are no ballads. There are however, a lot of keys, and as previously indicated, they're mostly performed in a progressive manner and they're occasionally a bit on the quirky side. I personally haven't found this CD to be too progressive, but if that's definitely not your thing, you may have a difficult time getting into it. The passages into hard rock are very minimal, and that's a good thing for my personal tastes, as the CD's power metal parts (which do dominate) are what I like most about it.
I must admit that I really enjoy almost all of the songs on this debut (a few of the songs are just okay), and it's kinda fun like Power Quest's CDs. There are highlight's too - track 4 "Captive to lies" and track 8 "Waiting the time" being my personal favorites, as they're some of the faster songs, and they have catchy rhythms and terrific choruses. I should also mention that there are some nice slow parts (only one full song though - track 10 "Sacred shiver", an instrumental), which remind me of some of Wonderland's moments and that's obviously a huge plus (for me), since they're one of my favorite Italian bands. So to sum up, there are a lot of things that make for a great listen for me personally and if you're into the bands mentioned in this review you should dig it too, but with the progressive and hard rock elements, it surely won't be for everyone.
CLINT
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