Band:	Saruman
Album:	Ride On The Darkside
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	2002
A review by:	Undercraft

01. The Dragonslayer (Intro)
02. New Demon Spawn
03. Take The Razorblade
04. The Queen Of The Damned
05. Endless Winter
06. Ride On The Darkside
07. The Night Masquerade [Dimmu Borgir cover]

The evil wizard from the Lord Of the Rings trilogy is back, and while many of you thought that a band called Saruman would come in a Power Metal shape, this time comes in a quite unusual Sympho Death Black garment.

I must say that I have mixed feelings about this release, which is also the debut Cd of the band. Mixed feelings because the whole idea of the Cd is excellent, but it has some flaws.
The band plays Melodic Death Metal with some Black Metal influences here and there, in the vocal department we have growls, shrieks, and clean voices.
The highlight of the band is definitively the beautiful cello that accompanies each song, it's wailing will enchant any one who listens to it.

Luckily the Cello has been granted with priority, and is always present, some other nice passages contains violins, acoustic guitars and even some Doom influences. Think Apocalyptica gone Death Metal, or Dark Lunacy with bad production, that may give you a hint of the sound that Saruman delivers.

Oh, the production, sadly, is above average, the mix is not that great, with a better work in this area this record could have been great, also, some more raw influences are present in the music like blast beats (typical of Black Metal), and some really noisy parts.

Also I noticed that this record 2 different cover artworks, one is really ugly while other is quite good, I'll post the good cover I found somewhere in the web, because I got the ugly one with the Cd.
Nice debut effort by these Germans, I'll be on the watch out for their next album, I'm sure it's going to kick ass, and please watch the production this time!