Cristiano Filippini's Flarmes of Heaven
The Force Within

Cristiano Filippini and his Flames of Heaven comes up with a 69-minute debut album. This debut album is called The Force Within and it shows this quintet at the beginning of their epic story, it could be their only instalment but let us hope that it isn’t. And like many of the symphonic metallers they are from Italy, they are grand masters of that genre – something that would be a guarantee for greatness. But Italians are also grand masters of delusions of grandeur. So what about Filippini and his flames?

Undeniably it is epic, symphonic, I think someone Italian once called it Hollywood metal or Film Score Metal, that isn’t really wrong for this kind of music. It is big, the production is strong, the use an orchestra, and I think the sound is pretty grand and powerful. The singer is decent, but also fairly standard for the genre and that isn’t the best recipe for a band that wants to distinguish itself from the masses. The music doesn’t offer many surprises either, so they do not really reinvent the genre or come up with anything that revolutionise the style. Another thing they do, that many similar bands do, is make a long album, I think it is too long as it doesn’t really vary enough to keep a listener interested for the entire playing time.

Not the most exciting album perhaps, but a solid and strong epic album. I think Filippini shows with the debut that he can write pretty entertaining albums, but it should have something that really grabs the attention of me as a listener. Early on it is the ballad called Missing You that stands out, but it is mostly because it is different as it is a pretty standard ballad. Other songs on the album are better but you don’t instantly notice that and none of them really draws you to the album, it stands more on its whole than on the hits, but I am really missing a strong hit that is a draw towards the album. The effort feels more solid than spectacular and that is probably not the best argument for buying this album.

The fans of the symphonic metal, and especially the Italian, should have a look at this album, there is a good chance that you will like this album. It is an album that is hard to dislike, but at the same time it is not that memorable and I would describe it as a solid yet unspectacular album – there are better choices out there but you cannot really go too wrong with this epic.

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