Benedictum - Seasons Of Tragedy - review
Benedictum - Seasons Of Tragedy - review
Tracklist
01. Dawn Of Seasons (Instrumental)02. Shell Shock
03. Burn It Out
04. Bare Bones
05. Within The Solace
06. Beast In The Field
07. Legacy
08. Nobody's Victim
09. Balls To The Wall [Accept cover]
10. Steel Rain
11. Seasons Of Tragedy
12. Catch The Rainbow [Rainbow cover] [limited edition bonus]
A review by
Jeff February 04, 2008
The good point of "Seasons Of Tragedy" is that this album perfectly combines groove and violence. Ok of course the new Benedictum is not an album of Thrash Metal but if you just have a look on a song like "Shell Shock" or "Burn It Out" you'll quickly understand that "Seasons Of Tragedy" is really far away of the Europeans releases. We have good catchy melodies in the album but that's not all, the riffs are strong and powerful and the rhythms (in general?) are fast and addictive. One more time the voice of Veronica Freeman is more than convincing, she is a real singer of Heavy Metal and she is probably better than a ton of guys who use to sing in the category. What I want to say here is that Veronica will never (and can't) be labeled as a "female singer", she is a singer of Heavy Metal that's all, and of course she is good to do that.
The album has a lot of guest musicians: Craig Goldy (Dio), Georges Lynch (ex Dokken), Manu Schmidt (Grave Digger), and finally Jeff Pilson (Dokken, Foreigner) who is also the producer of "Seasons Of Tragedy". The sound of the release is really good and the performances of all the musicians are excellent (you'll see the guitars soli are just great!). The band has even recorded a cover of the legendary "Balls To The Wall", it's well done for sure but will never be better than the original song anyway. The only little problem for me with this release is that some songs ("Bare Bones", "Steel Rain") are a bit too slow, too "mid-tempo" and even if they're not bad, they're a bit dull when you compared them with the best songs of the album ("Shell Shock", "Burn It Out", "Nobody Victims"; "Legacy"?). This is not really problematic in the end, these songs are good too but not so groovy and "in your face" than some others!
"Seasons Of Tragedy" is a good album of Heavy Metal. Full of potential hits this release is groovy as hell and will be convincing for all the ones who like to listen to classy Metal. This is maybe not perfect but for sure it should be the way for Benedictum to become famous. After a good start two years ago, Benedictum is back and I can only recommend to you this new release. Benedictum must be considered now as a serious contender for the title of best surprise in the Heavy Metal category.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 7 |
| Originality: | 7 |
| Production: | 8 |
Written by Jeff | February 04, 2008
Comments
Comments:
9
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 Posts: 1698 |
Posts: 1698
Well, I think this album sucked. I didn't find any part interesting except from the vocalist. All the other was lass than mediocre, originality close to zero and of course nothing special to listen / buy... Rating 4 by me, worst album of the year so far... 
---- Bitch! Please
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| Kamilbolt
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Kamilbolt
Account deleted  I disagree with first comment. This stuff maybe isn't so full of fire and energy as "Uncreation", but it's still really strong music. And Veronica Freeman is queen of female vocal  "Seasons of Tragedy" is my candidate on the best heavy metal album in 2008  85/100
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Posts: 5537  |
Posts: 5537
I bought this album because of the cover  I agree with the first comment, it does suck...big time :'(
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| Posts: 1698 |
Posts: 1698 Written by Herzebeth on 04.02.2008 at 16:39 Exactly man, only the cover is good. But you can't just buy an album because of its cover...
---- Bitch! Please
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Posts: 825  |
Posts: 825 Written by iaberis on 04.02.2008 at 17:56 There is a lot of cheesy and generic power metal with very cool covers. So better go with the more obscure covers.
---- My account on other musical pages: http://www.last.fm/user/Pozito/ http://rateyourmusic.com/~Talvi
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| madgarry
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 Posts: 3523 |
Posts: 3523
You've pretty much matched my thoughts on this release. If it were a disc full of tracks like "Shell Shock" I'd be in love, but all those mid-tempo songs just made me keep looking to see how much longer the song had to go. All the musicians do a great job, but I just don't like mid-tempo heavy metal like songs like "Bare Bones." Still, it's a very good disc, and some killer vocals yet again!!
---- "After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley
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Posts: 5537 |
Posts: 5537 Written by [user id=590] on 04.02.2008 at 17:59 I grew up the hard way man
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 Posts: 1358 |
Posts: 1358
Wait, the singer is a girl? Woah. I think its a pretty good CD, haven't heard the first CD yet (Besides the track "Wicca") but after hearing this one I'm going to have to check it out. ^^
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