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Aria - Мания Величия review



Reviewer:
6.5

57 users:
7.72
Band: Aria
Album: Мания Величия
Release date: 1985


01. Это Рок
02. Тореро
03. Волонтер
04. Бивни Черных Скал
05. Мания Величия
06. Жизнь Задаром
07. Мечт
08. Позади Америка

The legend began in 1985 when the russian heavy metal band Aria (Arija) released their debut album called Megalomania. From this time on the band would be called the russian Iron Maiden, but this is megalomania within the comparison, on the one hand because Iron Maiden has had such a bigger impact on the whole NWOBHM movement and on the other hand because Aria are different. Of course you can't deny the main influence, but apart from that Aria are a russian band with russian lyrics, russian influences, a russian background and that is what you can hear in their debut or at least what you should hear.

The first track 'This Is Doom' is not that impressive, beginning with noise getting into a good verse, but only mediocre chorus. 'Torero' then is one of the best songs on the album, clearly heavy metal oriented. The next song held rather slow is 'Volunteer' with a slightly too long into part of wind (noise) and synthesizers, then a long instrumental part and almost two minutes pass until the singing begins, where the verse is monotonous and the chorus repetitive, hence it follows it's not the most spectecular song, but it has an interesting guitar line. The following song tends to remind me of old Nintendo games like Mega Man, with a typical reocurring guitarline a quite wild beat (not enough fills though) and galloping power chords for the verse, very interesting.The title track 'Megalomnia' is just an instrumental/choir piece, but it's only lalala instead of real lyrics, synthesizer music and underlined with long lasting chords, nothing really special. I don't really like the following song 'Life For Free' it's too repetitive and has a rather short breath compared to the other songs only the solo is quite pleasant. In fact the whole album is like that, only 'Torero' and 'Tusks Of Black Rock' stand out between the other songs, but we can speak of luck, because without these two songs the whole album could have ended up in a mess, not because of technical issues, it would just be nothing special. 'Dreams' the mid-tempo ballad and 'America Is Behind' with a cool hard rock riff add to that impression. They are partly interesting, but not as a whole.

Time has shown that this was only meant to be the start for Aria into a much brighter future than you could expect from that point. Nevertheless 'Megalomnia' became a big success in russia, because Aria played a style that has not been heard before by a russian band. I'm not saying that there has been no metal band in Russia before them and I can't judge this because I simply don't know, but success came in the most plus international recognition for this particular band: Aria. From the mid 80's on the cornerstone of metal in Russia.

Written by Pierre Tombale | 05.07.2004



Guest review by
creapchar
Rating:
8.2
I really love this album. Yes, it's not one of the best albums, but to me it's very worthy, and even underrated to some extent. It doesn't have a single bad song, although it has a lot of average ones. But overall, Мания Величия is a really good effort, especially for a debut record. This album has its own atmosphere, its own soul: very Russian, thoughtful and beautiful in the sense that the music here is very melodic and harmonious.

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published 19.02.2024 | Comments (2)



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