DRAGONFORCE — Valley of the Damned (review)

DRAGONFORCE — Valley of the Damned album cover

Album · 2003 · Power Metal

2/5 · 2015-10-31
martindavey87

With the obvious talent and potential to become one of the greatest power metal bands of all time, the thing that makes DragonForce stand out the most is also the thing that annoys me about them. They’re too fast.

‘Valley of the Damned’ has a very promising start, with the title track producing some very nice riffs, accompanied by some incredibly catchy vocals, however, this is as good as it gets, as halfway through the song the band, in particular, guitarists Sam Totman and Herman Li, decide to disregard any logical tune and just shred away. It quickly becomes apparent that this is the formula for all of their songs.

With bands such as Dream Theater and Symphony X being top influences of mine, it’s clear that shredding isn’t a problem for me. What bothers me when DragonForce start wailing away, is that it’s so fast and flashy that there is no distinguishable melody. Every solo, and I mean EVERY solo, sounds exactly the same, and by that I mean a flurry of notes where the main focus is flashy acrobatics over actual substance. As a result, it's hard to really care once they get started.

It’s a shame, because this band has a lot of potential, and in the very few cases when they do slow down their music is awesome. Songs like ‘Valley of the Damned’ and ‘Disciples of Babylon’ have some really kickass moments and memoable vocal melodies, but then descend into the standard DragonForce routine of ruining a perfectly good song with stupidly fast solos that lack any sense of musicality.

As a fan of shred guitar playing, it saddens me to say this, but in the case with this band, ‘speed kills’.

more than 2 years ago
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666sharon666 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, that annoys me too, though I've only ever encountered that problem on RYM.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Yeah, that annoys me too. It especially pisses me off that so many people think US Power metal isn't power metal.

666sharon666 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I think a bit of cheese in a power metal band is fine; there are just limits to what I can stomach.

The point I was getting at was that there are a lot of different kinds of power metal band out there, many of them not cheesy at all, but I often see the genre getting written off as a whole because of bands like Dragonforce.

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I see where you're coming from, but I've always felt the cheesy-ness is part of the fun.

666sharon666 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I can't say I like them all that much. Their speed is not the issue for me, though I do actually see where Martin is coming from on this. I just find them way too cheesy even by power metal standards. There's so much awesome power metal out there that gets overlooked because of bands like this, and I actually find that really frustrating.

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Hell no...LOL :-)

martindavey87 wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I would recommend rehab for your speed addictions. :-p

Unitron wrote:

more than 2 years ago

I love the speed as well, it's what DragonForce is all about! :D

UMUR wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Their crazy speed is what is appealing to me too. As soon as they lower the pace, I lose interest.

Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Too fast? You do realise this is DragonForce? Too fast is what DragonForce do. That's why I like them and have a bit of a yawn at other power metal bands.