Sceptor
Take Command!

This is a story of a ceremonial staff which someone uses to take command, as an aspiring author it is easy to imagine a story from these facts about this German quartet and the fact that it opens in an argument hardly dampens these ideas. This is the debut story of this German band from Mannheim, and if I judge the book by its cover it isn’t that interesting. Looking at the titles of the songs you could imagine out a story from those but the ending one Rock City does not quite make for a logical ending to the story and this is actually reflective of the album itself wether you try to make a story from it or not.

It is built around the US kind of power metal foundation with a tad heavier and dirtier sound than the european more refined kind of power metal, the vocalist sounds a bit more aggressive as well. There are eleven songs on the album and one is an intro which is a bit of an argument setting a tone for the album which you might imagine has a story. The format is quite typical of the genre both in included elements and song structures, the production is quite ordinary and the sound is rather boring and the whole of the thing feels a bit insignificant seen in sound. Of course such things could be remedied by them making good songs, which the do not do either.

When writing a story, or making a movie and probably when recording an album most of what you create ends up on a floor somewhere, the texts in the thrash, the filmed stuff on the editing room floor and the music probably also ends up on a floor or thrash somewhere. This apparently is nothing these guys have ever understood as the impression of this album implies that every piece of music they wrote and recorded is included in this album. It feels unfinished, like they forgot to make as much material so that they could select the best from it. I would say that it is a quite uninteresting album, some might however like it even if most of the reviews I found wasn’t overly positive.

An album that has me a bit confused, why was it made? Why didn’t they finish it? Is this really the best they can do? Why was this picked up by a label? the questions are many and there are no real answers but what I can say is that it is an album that feels both unfinished and uninspired. There are some good things here on this album but they are not arranged in a way that it makes the album good and the album feels a bit like a jigsaw puzzle made out of unmatching pieces. Not an album I feel does anything in particular to me and I am not really sure that it will appeal to you either. So if you don’t like it, remember that I told you so.

HHHHHHH