The Block
In search of Kaledon
If you’re looking for some good cliché power metal, you are listening to the right album. Kaldon’s first installment in the Legend of the Forgotten Reign series is everything power metal is supposed to be. It’s fast in parts, the drum beats carry the whole album, and the singing is okay. A cool thing about this series of albums is that it is one huge concept album, broken down into six parts. Usually concept albums have epics, but “The Destruction” has no epic; the longest song is only 8 minutes.
“In Search for Kaledon” is a pretty good song, with fast drumming and good accurate guitar work. The keyboards definitely add to the guitars, to which they blend right in with. One objection to this song, though, is that the screams of Marco Palazzi are way to drawn out. When it starts it is kind of cool, but then they go on and on causing them to go flat, and offering up a bad sound. This album has good harmonies on it, especially on the track “Army of the Undead King”. Marco Palazzi’s and Paolo Lezziroli’s voices blend well, creating a smooth sound that is carried on by the drum beats. But, once again, one of Marco Palazzi’s screams drag out too long, ruining that part of the song.
The song “Thunder in the Kingdom” offers up something that I did not expect from Kaledon. They growled. At first when I heard it I just thought it was some sound effect, but when I listened closer I could make out a growl. But, that alone is a testament to how awful the growls were. While I didn’t think that they would be the best in the world, they were a bit worse then I thought. The way that they used the growls, though, was pretty cool. Kaledon accented the end of each line of vocals with them, adding the affect of thunder, hence the name of the song. Kaledon, on this album, also showed that they could deviate from the power metal mold with the song “Streets of the Sky”. It is actually a slow song, something that never seems to find its way into most other Kaledon albums. It uses mostly bass and offset vocals to slow it down, creating a new effect to the album.
During the two songs that I just mentioned and others that include; “Hero of the Land” and “Spirit of the Dragon”, Kaledon uses a call and answer technique. Marco Palazzi starts off singing, and then Paolo Lezziroli comes in and answers Palazzi’s call. During this, they change up the rhythm a lot, which makes the songs have a weird feel to it. For an overall good release Kaledon gets 3.5 stars for the first installment in the Legend of the Forgotten Reign series.