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Opus I - All My Kingdoms is the debut full-length album by German power metal act Heavatar. It was released in 2013. Heavatar is fronted by Stefan Schmidt whom some may know as one of the so called ‘rakkatakka’ vocalists of metal a cappella group Van Canto. In Heavatar he trades in his imitations for an actual guitar and assumes the lead vocalist role of the four piece group, which also includes former Stratovarius drummer Jörg Michael.
The premise of Opus I - All My Kingdoms is that the songs borrow from a work by a classical composer. The composers chosen for the record are Johann Sebastian Bach, Niccolò Paganini and Ludwid van Beethoven. The exception is the final track on the album, To the Metal, which cites Blind Guardian, Metallica, Manowar and ‘the metal’ itself rather than a classical composer. I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to classical music though so the significance that borrowing from the music may have on the album is unfortunately lost on me, and I’m left with an album that could easily be any other power metal album that is defined by a heavy, guitar driven approach using an aggressive vocal style.
And with the exception of some occasional leanings into more traditional heavy metal territory, that’s all Opus I - All My Kingdoms will deliver. The musicianship is competent and Schmidt’s vocals generally work in context with the guitar driven approach Heavatar employs, but like with the singers of power metal bands who have used similar vocal styles (Grave Digger and Rebellion come to mind), could prove an acquired taste. Still, for me, it’s a 1000% improvement on rakkatakka vocals. The problem with the album is that although it is an enjoyable work overall, not enough of it really stands out. The best track is the 11:25 epic The Look Above and I quite like Born to Fly despite a noted repetitiveness issue. Tracks like Luna! Luna! or Replican showcase the standard of the album which is good but unremarkable, while To the Metal is the oddball of the album in that despite the name it’s not a metal track, but still full of cheese the way only a metal celebratory song can be. There’s actually some really interesting instrumentation found in the track, but lyrically it’s a bit too much cheese, which for me spoils what was otherwise a cheese free album.
Maybe if I ‘got’ the influence the work of the classical composers has on it things would be different, but since I don’t I’m left feeling a bit of disappointment with the album. It’s good to be sure, no track is bad, but it is one of those albums that seems so full of promise and fails to really deliver anything special. With a couple more highlights it would have scraped a great album tier rating from me but because of some marked faults in even the best of tracks (The Look Above is the one exception), I can only justifiably give Opus I - All My Kingdoms a good album tier rating.
73/100
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/heavatar-opus-i-all-my-kingdoms-t2813.html))