Band:	Requiem (FIN)
Album:	Mask Of Damnation
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	December 01, 2003
A review by:	Jeff

01. Blinded
02. The Dying Ember
03. Mask Of Damnation
04. Divine Illusion
05. Ethereal Journey
06. Shrine Of The Ocean
07. Dagger
08. The Rival's Spell
09. The Accordance [Japanese bonus]

Requiem is a band from Finland, they use to do Power metal with some interesting touch of Prog Metal, which give at the end, music more than interesting. After their very promising 1rst album "The Arrival" in 2002, the band do his come back through Sound Riot records with their new production, "Mask Of Damnation".


At the first listening; "Mask Of Damnation" is one another Power Metal album like the ton of productions that we have actually. But quickly we can find that is not really same. In fact after some few minutes, the progressives touch in the album come. And well, the good points of this new production, come to your ear.
The music of Requiem sound very medieval in some aspects of the songs in general, but in the other hand the riffs are very powerful and speedy. The voice of Jouni can sound weird the first time, he is definitely not bad but has a really strange voice, not too high not too deep, but yes, strange. But his voice is good for the Prog aspect of the songs of this album but maybe even that, he is not the strong point of the album, certainly due to some problems with the mixing which is not perfect for the vocals.
The Prog parts of the tracks are certainly the really good thing with that production because it can sound Power and in one second, [even if the song always sound a lot power], we have something different. Sometime, very complex, some other time more "easy" the songs of this album are at the end interesting because Guitars and Keyboards solo are damn effective. And the numerous Prog break [with a ton of psychedelic and very fast solo of Keyboards and Guitars] in the music give that aspect which make that "Mask Of Damnation" is not common. To sum up, we can find the Power parts in a lot of albums, but it's not same if we want to find something with all those part of Prog. And it makes all the originality of the cd.

I will come now to the bad point of the album for me. The production is not really great even if the cd is mastered by Jussila. The vocals are less powerful than guitars that cover all the other instruments. It's hard to feel the Bass, and the Drums are not very powerful in opposition of the Guitars again. Same for the backing chorus which sometime are hard to listen? It's a shame, because we expect something better for a band like Requiem. At the opposite, the Keyboards and Guitars are damn powerful and sound very good. Good point however, the nice cover and artworks of the cd that show that we have a band with good taste.


"Mask Of Damnation" is an original album, very good for a lot of things and well even if the production is not the strong point of this album, I will recommend it to all the fans of Power Metal who want something a bit different. Because yes, Requiem do music that we can't listen everyday and again I will say that the touch of Prog are good and give the power to this album.
Requiem do here something which is not perfect, but which can be catchy and honest. If you want good and original Power Metal, no doubt that you'll like "Mask Of Damnation", but I'm affraid than the others can certainly go away listen something else.