Vandor
On a Moonlit Night

Now that I am to write down whatever I think about Vandor I see that reviewers are full of praise for the band and their music. It is everything from praising the sound to everything else it seems, and like almost always I don’t understand why. I just can’t see what is so special with this one, the cover says exactly what you are going to hear, there are no surprises, no fresh ideas, nothing that gets the brain into gear – just a power metal archetype, a caricature of musicianship. The second album is called On a Moonlit Night, and on that moonlit night this album is in the bin while I listen to the silence of the forest that is both more amazing as power metal, and a better soundtrack.

Power metal according to format, the epic kind with big arrangements and choruses. The sound is quite good, almost impressive, but the songs are built to specification rather than from the band’s creative imagination. They have the almost obligatory eternal track; this has a playing time well over fifteen minutes – a waste of fifteen minutes. The playing time of the album is long overall with almost 55 minutes, that is way too much. Like so many albums of the genre the production is very strong, but the songs lack imagination – how many times isn’t that true, and what the hell is wrong with musicians? Why so little creativity?

I find myself not really caring about this album, it never grabs my attention, and I don’t feel like listening. It is boring. I wonder what those reviewers see in this album or is it just that they don’t really care if things are interesting as long as they are familiar or nostalgic. The problem with Vandor is that they aren’t better at the craft, and they aren’t reinventing anything – they offer nothing, nothing at all just another dull and standardised power metal album of the kind we have heard so many times before. I just don’t see the point of making stuff that has been done to death already, why not make something fresh and interesting?

I would say that this is as interesting as taking a stroll around LV-426 at night, at least you will meet more interesting musicians than those making up this band. But perhaps I am a bit hard on them, they are decent craftsmen after all and I guess even derivative and boring albums can be interesting for some – especially those reviewing music online – but I think you can easily find much better power metal albums than this one, we have heard this one so many times before.

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