SKYLARK — The Horizon & The Storm (review)

SKYLARK — The Horizon & The Storm album cover

Album · 1995 · Power Metal

1/5 · 2021-12-05
lukretion

In the 1990s, Italy saw an explosion of symphonic power metal bands, combining German power/speed metal with symphonic and neoclassic influences. Rhapsody are probably the country’s best known export from those years, but Labyrinth, Drakkar, DGM, and Domine are other notable acts that became known throughout Europe and beyond. Hailing from Milan and driven by the skills of keyboard player Eddy Antonini, Skylark were actually one of the first bands to venture into this new genre, but their success has been much more limited than other acts’. The Horizon & the Storm, Skylark’s self-produced full-length debut album, makes it easy to see why.

Antonini’s ambitions are praiseworthy. His idea of mixing the fast tempos and razor-sharp guitar riffs of power metal with delicate piano flourishes and rich symphonic keyboards has potential. However, on this LP the band’s potential comes through as fully realized only in a small number of episodes, like the intro to the epic “Little Girl”, or the majestic organ that breaks through the galloping riffs of “Skylark / Crystal Lake”, or the intro to “Escape from the Dark”. Antonini’s playing is also pretty good and the piano pieces that bookend the LP are nice However, nearly everything else on this album is a disaster.

In ascending order of dismay, the production is simply terrible. It’s a self-produced album, so one should give these guys some slack. But, boy, this stuff is hardly listenable. In short, whenever there are more than two instruments in the mix, everything becomes an undistinguishable drone of noise. The fast drums often bury guitars and bass, and one can barely hear the keyboards crawling out of the mix here and there. Speaking of drums, I feel there is something wrong in what Francesco Meles plays on a few passages of the album. His double bass seems often slightly out of tempo (“Skylark / Crystal Lake”), giving the songs rather shaky foundations.

High on top of this mess lie Fabio Dozzo’s vocals, which can be heard loud and clear. Unfortunately. Because they are pitchy and strained as hell, as Dozzo tries hard to hit those high Kiske-esque notes that he simply cannot reach. Things are much better when he stays in his low range, but of course this isn’t what power metal singers were expected to do back in the day so he often doubles up his vocal lines with a high-pitched squeak that borders on the ridiculous. I may sound harsh, but bad vocals on a power metal album are definitely a killjoy. After all, in this genre the vocals are often the main “instrument” carrying the melody, and if they sound poor, everything else is ruined too.

There is little to save on this LP. The compositions have interesting twists and turns, again showing that Antonini (the main songwriter here) had vision and potential. Some pieces venture even in progressive (“Little Girl”) and metal opera directions (the theatrical “A Star in the Universe” and “Escape from the Dark”). But it is really hard to extract sonic pleasure from the 34 minutes of this LP. Skylark will continue their career for another twenty years with mixed fortunes and leaving an impression of unrealized potential that already transpires quite clearly on this album.