Italian metal outfit MASTERCASTLE return on June 18th with their second album, Last Desire (Lion Music).

Led by the soaring vocals of Giorgia Gueglio, the gifted guitar work of Pier Gonella and the tight rhythmic interplay of bassist Steve Vawamas and drummer Alessandro Bissa, Mastercastle made a strong impression with their debut album; the 2009 release The Phoenix, and are back with an even more impressive follow-up.

Last Desire takes a similar path to its predecessor yet sees the debuts neo-classical influences toned down a little and replaced with a straighter hard rock/metal sound making for a more rocking affair. The big riffs Pier Gonella is known for are here in all their glory and Giorgia Gueglio works her vocals into new areas on the new music, whilst the bass work and potent drumming are powerfully produced creating a thunderous sound.

The straighter hard rock style of the album is represented by opener ‘Event Horizon’, ‘Away’ and ‘Cat House’. Whilst the title track fuses a number of different elements from an almost thrash metal guitar riff to the hard rock edged chorus to make an original sound. Guitar fans will find a lot to enjoy in the instrumentals ‘Las Serenissima’ and ‘Space Trip’. The former being a cover of the Italian ensemble piece ‘Rondo Veneziano’ rearranged for rock guitar and sees the classical slant of the debut echoed. Whilst the former is a more traditional guitar instrumental fusing technical and melodic aspects that will appeal to all metal fans. The rest of the album focuses on strong heavy metal/hard rock with strong vocal melodies and memorable themes.

Vocalist Giorgio Gueglio penned all the albums lyrics covering a variety of stories all based around the different meanings of the word ‘desire’. The title track is about the passion that lights between two individuals. In ‘Will Spell’ the desire means hope, the hope of escaping from reality and the will to dream anyway. In the opening track ‘Event Horizon’ there is the desire to cross the human borderline of reason. The songs tell about the general relativity, where event horizon is a boundary in space beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. It’s a point of no return that represents the curiosity of the man who wants to know everything new for him.

In ‘Scarlett’ the lyrics are based on meaning behind the film “gone with the wind” that represents the desire as the strength to go on between the pains and discomforts of war, where a combative women never looses her female charms. On 'Cat-House' we can find 2 desires: the more turbid desire of a customer who turns to a prostitute to overcome the difficulties of life; and the desire of the prostitute that want to escape from that condition. ‘Misr’ tells about the ingredients for magic or bewitched potions that responds to the desire of evocating far and unspoiled landscapes. All the lyrics are delivered with great strength and clarity from one of metal strongest new female vocalists.

The majority of what would become Last Desire was written between May and September 2009. 3 songs were sent to Lion Music as demo of the new album and these saw the label offer a deal for the second album. Recordings then commenced at the end of November 2009 with mixing and mastering taking place in December 2009 with the album seeing release on June 19th.

Tracklisting:

'Event Horizon'

'Misr'

'Wild Spell'

'Last Desire'

'Away'

'Space Trip'

'Jade Star'

'Great Heaven’s Climb'

'Cat-House'

'Toxie Radd'

'La Serenissima'

'Scarlett'

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