FAIRYLAND - The Fall Of An Empire
January 30, 2007, 17 years ago
(Napalm)
Can’t really image metal guys proclaiming, “I’m a huge Fairyland fan.” Just something about that name. Anyway, the band was once the post-Dark Moor vehicle for Elisa Martin, but she flew the coop after their ’03 debut. Taking a cue from Rhapsody and Kamelot (with whom they’re scheduled to tour, in early ’07), the crisp, precision drumming sounds so close it might have been ProTooled from Casey Grillo. Still, the Frenchmen create ambitious compositions. Like Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter And The Wolf’, each track, as well as the album as a whole, feels as if it’s part of a story: very Hollywood metal, both orchestrated and orchestral. Like Rhapsody (the closest contemporary comparison), the best moments are the full-out speeders, not the piano/synth-dominated material. A bit less finery and more dirt is necessary.
