Astral Kingdom - The Astral Kingdom review
Band: | Astral Kingdom |
Album: | The Astral Kingdom |
Style: | Power metal |
Release date: | October 12, 2007 |
A review by: | Baz Anderson |
01. Face Your Demons
02. Escape Your Fate
03. The Astral Kingdom
04. Standing In The Light
05. The Field Of Honour
Last year it was Astral Kingdom's last demo "Into The Fire" under review, sounding like a new and inexperienced power metal band finding their proper feet. Half a year after that effort sees the band put out another demo under the same name as the band, "Astral Kingdom", and not a significant amount of things have changed.
Astral Kingdom are still a budding power metal band, all of the bare essentials they will need for later power metal life are here and growing nicely. We have nice, up-beat songs that carry a nice melody and will have you humming along such as the opening "Face Your Demons" - double bass drums are used well, singing and guitars are still not amazing but is not particularly bad either, they are both steady and consistent.
"Escape Your Fate" is a really great song; a heavier tone is taken here with a slight sing-along element in there for the chorus as well. It is the kind of cheery sing-along that gets trapped in your head, precisely the kind of music these guys aim to make. Whenever Astral Kingdom get around to recording a full-length album, this song should definitely be considered when choosing songs.
Some comparisons could possibly be made with Stratovarius, but Astral Kingdom still do not have the killer instinct needed to make an album that is both catchy and intense to captivate its audience. More speed and tenacity are still required if Astral Kingdom are going to catch attention though, they seem to require a kick up the rear, musically speaking of course, to really go and make some ballsy and heavy power metal.
Astral Kingdom know their music is not original, they just want to play music that they love to people that love this kind of music - and there is no harm in that at all. With this demo "Astral Kingdom", the band show they have grown in experience, not so much in the way of playing complicated music, but in the way of being able to write catchier and better songs. "Face Your Demons" and "The Field Of Honour" are both great songs, the latter showing a different, slower ballad side to the band, which works marvellously and of course the great "Escape Your Fate" show, this maturity.
It is always hard to see positive sides of bands when they sound so unoriginal and uninventive, but Astral Kingdom - as unoriginal as they are - have somewhat of an innocent charm about their music that makes it very likeable.
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