UMUR
"Symphony Of The Damned" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish power metal act Morgana Lefay. The album was released in March 1990 and was originally a self-financed and self-released affair. During the time the band temporarily changed their name to Lefay in the period 1997-2004, they re-recorded and re-released the full album under the Lefay monicker. Now there are typically three reasons for re-recording an album in its entirety, and those reasons are that the original album had poor sound or recording quality (or even bad musicianhip), the band have not and still don´t earn a penny from the sales of the original album because of a bad recording contract, or the album has been out of print for a number of years, and no decent quality master exists to create a re-release from.
In the case of "Symphony Of The Damned" my guess would be the latter option, because there is certainly nothing wrong with the sound quality nor the quality of the musicianship on this original version of the album. In fact this is a very well sounding release performed by a skilled crew of musicians, who are also clever composers.
Stylistically the material on "Symphony Of The Damned" is predominantly dark and heavy power metal with a skilled and passionate vocalist in front (Charles Rytkönen). It´s still melodic and epic like most power metal is, but it´s definitely in the heavier end of the scale for a power metal release (think of 80s Candlemass in a power metal version or the most dark and edgy Savatage and you´re halfway there), featuring some pretty sharp and heavy riffs and rhythms. There are a couple of exceptions in "Tequila", which is a hard rock/heavy rock oriented heavy metal track, and "War Without End" which is full-blown thrash metal. The former isn´t the most well chosen track for the tracklist and it does disrupt the atmosphere and flow of the album, while the latter is at least a little closer in style to the dark and heavy power metal sound of the rest of the material.
Charles Rytkönen has already been mentioned for his great and convincing vocal performance (I´m often reminded of Jon Oliva from Savatage), but "Symphony Of The Damned" is loaded with great musical performances. Killer riffs, clever lead guitar work, and varied and powerful drumming. So upon conclusion "Symphony Of The Damned" is a quality debut release by Morgana Lefay. The slightly inconsistent songwriting is a minor issue, but on the other hand the album feautures high quality material like "Whore of Babylon" and the title track, so it´s hard not to be impressed by what you´re listening to. A big 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.