Without diluting complexity of the delivery Far from the Madding Crowd reintroduced significant folk slant, meshed it with wonderful symphonics and added the sense of overall power through the meaty production by Tommy Hansen Jailhouse Studios. The first few phrases on The Road Goes Ever On sounded very boyish, and I thought that this would ruin the experience for me. On the opposite, the vocals on Far from the Madding Crowd sound powerful, very Dio like, and Patrick pushes his range constantly.
You will get a good vibe form the first notes of Celtic bagpipe intro of Gather Ye Wild. Perfect for Braveheart, Highlander and Robin Hood movies, it sets an atmosphere.
This track incorporates numerous Celtic-Gaelic folk influences with violin and flute melodies, Gary Moore-like riff from Over the Hills and Far Away , Boney M -like melody from Rasputin and incredibly joyous and playful chorus. Boisterous nature of the track needs the galloping rhythm and fast drumming. The centerpiece axis is the three-part epic Longing for the Woods.
Interesting percussion and use of banjo on Part 1, alternating explosive double bass and progressive dance rhythms on Part 2 and heavier, slightly extensive, Part 3 end up with the chorus you will be humming in your head for weeks. The whole record does not have a hint of darkness. Info Third studio album. Not on Spotify! Discography 1. Within 2. To Travel For Evermore 3. Far From The Madding Crowd 4. The Shadow Cabinet 5. Salt read more. Reviews 0 This album can be reviewed as soon as it has been released.
Reviews 7 Nightman October 13, Nostradamus May 9, This band is from Denmark,which is hard to believe when you listen to the music. They sound like they are from the UK,and there is a celtic feel to a lot of their songs. The music itself is very epic sounding power metal. This has a lot of variety in it though,as well as some bagpipes,banjo,flute and violin that you won't often find in this genre.
There are three parts to "Longing The song progresses to a folksy section in the middle which then bursts out into the very powerful chorus. Well done and majestic. However, since I'll get redundant listing off tracks and saying "Whoa, powerful", I think it's time to move on to the weak spots for the sake of Truth in Advertising.
Without a doubt, those are the ballads. In my opinion, "Land of Olden Glory" would have been a good track to end with, since I, for one, am going to be hitting the power button after that track anyway. To sum it up, if you're a fan of bands such as Blind Guardian, you really can't go wrong buying this CD. The strong points more than make up for the weak spots and it's a pity that this band gets less recognition than many Rhapsody clones of the month.
Nope, this is no "flower metal" album. All in all, this release was a good kick off the beginning of There is something bad and something good, in modern power metal: The bad thing is that the genre is, at the time, all but new how many years had passed since Helloween released their first Keeper?
Do anyone remember when Kai Hansen had hair on the top of his head? The good thing is that after all that time, modern power metal bands have a lot of work done about what sounds good, what sounds bad, and how albums could and should sound. To skip the bad thing, Wuthering Heights run through the realms of folk music even when that either isn't so original, at the time , as they loudly proclaim from the intro itself, wich is a version of the everybody's known song Amazing Grace.
They also use some flutes, bagpipes, violins and even banjos in some places of the songs, and use some changing and diverse melodies, folky inspired, that manage to make every solo a handful of well engaded jewels.
But the pass though the folk realm isn't something really deep, but just a tool to make the music fresh and different from the classical stuff of the genre About the second point, these guys realy took note of how power metal must be: They sound very well, to the point that they could stare face to face with any of the old bands in the genre.
It isn't very serious music well, there had been some very serious albums like Gamma Ray's Land of the Free, but mainly how can it be serious if the icon of one of the most classical power bands is a smiling pumpkin!?
So, to conclude, Wuthering Heights seems to be very comfortable in a realm that, appart from the classical elements of this music, covers lands between Rhapsody's best wishes and Falconer's tries, without sounding so cheesie as the first and sounding faster and louder than the second. Now listening to it song by song, the first track, as stated above, is an introduction that uses the melody of Amazing Grace to launch the second track, The Road Goes On and On, that starts and ends with an echoed lead that reminds me Running Wild in their Blazon Stone times.
The song goes fast and shining, giving shelter to some nice melodies in the solo. The next track, Tree, stars somewhat slower, like some kind of hymn that few seconds before minute 2 fastens, to make room for a beautiful lead in the style of the opening one of the previous song.
The solo is beautiful and have space to shelter some brief wo-o-oh choruses that must be something funny for the crowd to sing along in a live show specialy if they make them last a bit more. Then, with the fourth track, we get the first part of the trilogy Longing for the Woods, the core of the album.
There in the songs we get again some vocal lines that seem designed to make people be happy in a show. About minute four everything turns folky as hell when a banjo and a violin takes the song, underlined by a double bass drums, making one of the weirdest and coolest parts of the whole album.
Highland Winds starts with a flute and a very mice drum that breaks into a slow passage This is a slower song, anyway, that speeds up for the solows and down for the choruses. At the fourth minute some rhytm shots make room for a nother beautiful solo.
The song have a false sudden ending, just to continue with one of those fading endings, with guitars playing alternative leads at left and right. Track six holds the second part of the Woods' trilogy, The Ring of Fire, and starts majestic and fast.
It have a very classical solo in the way that it sounds like coming from one of those typical heavenly skilled guitars and also because Mozard would surely had liked things like that for sure. When it ends the song changes totally the path, leaving keyboards draw a quiet zone from where to start with the lyrics again. It all explodes in the fifth minute, when the song returns to the leading speedy riffs and chorus. The next song is more peaceful once again they interlace fast and not-so-fast songs surely to bring some contrast to the music: old tricks use to be the best ones , makes you think that it could had been named The Bard's Song - Whatever, if this were another album by another band There are flutes all along, and it's a beautiful song that slows all down, to make the eight song, the instrumental of the wonderful title above mentioned: Bad Hobbits Die Hard.
This one is a lovely fast song that makes me think on Blind Guardian's Beyond The Ice, because it have the same speed in a melodic and happier aproach. Then, after that funny and fast interlude, Hernes Prophecy comes as the hightlight of the album and the ending part of the trilogy. It's for me the best song in the album. It opens with some keyboards to leave some break with the bad hobbit's theme that soon are followed by guitars and drums. All goes up and up, and the song mixes melodies and that already were heard in the previous parts of the Longing for the Woods story.
The chorus reminds me of Rhapsody, as some others before but without sounding so forced and some keyboards details sound like things I had heard to Children of Bodom in the way it drops a note to focus the attention into the guitars.
The solo is the best one of the whole album, long, variated and with realy great melodies embeded on it, that use to be repeated and played with a slow speed the first time, just to release the drums later and do it all again at full speed, and the trick works perfectly. After that the song follows the usual pattern, in its search for an ending: A bit more lyrics, one chorus, and an ending that again have something attached after it, a melodic epilogue.
After that one, Land of Olden Glory is a very variated and nice song, with a pace that goes changing through the song So, to end this review, this is a very good album that makes one think that this style have proud young bands to keep it going on without having to keep buying the same Gamma Ray stuff again and again and again.
A band to keep in mind for the future. Metal Archives loading Username Password Login. Bands alphabetical country genre Labels alphabetical country Reviews R.
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