Icy Steel - As The Gods Command

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\r\nItalian newcomers Icy Steel and their latest album\r\n“As The Gods Command” land to today’s metal scene to offer absolutely nothing\r\nnew or at least remarkable. That’s because their music, which is revealed as an\r\nItalian product from miles away (well... that is not a bad thing itself\r\nright?), seems to be coming from a previous decade, not as a retro thing but\r\nrather as a repetition. What we have here is Italian power metal as it was\r\nplayed by great bands like Rhapsody Of Fire, Domine and others, with a more\r\nheavy metal approach of course but lacking one essential ingredient:\r\ninspiration. The songs in “As The Gods Command” lack of moments that can draw\r\nthe listener’s attention and force him to press the “repeat” button fro the\r\nalbum or at least for a single song. Truth is however that none of the songs\r\nfall below the average but unfortunately that “average” becomes the whole\r\nalbum’s distinctive point. Add to that an also average singer who especially\r\nwhen he has to hit high notes seems to lose his way and a not so good\r\nproduction and there you have it, a classic case of an “average” album. Surely\r\nthere are some good moments here and there, especially for fans of this certain\r\nsound and moreover this band, excluding the singer, shows that they are capable\r\nmusicians and know to handle their instruments right. I must also note that\r\nthey did a good job in terms of diversity, avoiding to put any faster-than-light\r\ndouble bass drumming or guitar riffs, instead there are many mid-tempo songs,\r\nwhich happen in my opinion to be the best ones in the album, with my favorite\r\nbeing the last one “There Once Was A Weeping Willow”, where the singer finally\r\nshows some vestiges of talent. To sum up, as I mentioned above, “As The Gods\r\nCommand” is an more or less mediocre album that will find it hard to lift an\r\neyebrow for any others than the hardcore fans of Italian-style power/heavy\r\nmetal of the past decade.\r\n

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\r\nLambros “Metalshock” Panetas\r\n

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