Band:	Firestorm
Album:	The Never-Ending Course Of Time
Style:	Progressive power metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Last Minutes
02. Falling Into Dark Apathy
03. Tempus Fugit
04. The Never-Ending Course Of Time
05. Shadows In My Mind

Firestorm was born as an Iron Maiden tribute band, later in their career, and after becoming very popular in their area (near Ancona), they decided that it was time to record some material of their own, the result, their first demo Cd, entitled "The Never-Ending Curse Of Time".

I bet that many of you are thinking right now that these guys are a carbon copy of Iron Maiden (without all the fame and millions of course), well, it's allright to think that, I thought that too, but luckily we were completely wrong, because if not totally opposite of Iron Maiden, Firestorm have managed to create a unique style here.

Instead of following the Maiden's galloping rhythms and fast paced tunes, Firestorm went for the Heavy Metal with Progressive outbreaks, lots of keyboards and electronic influences, the mix is a bit weird at first, that's sure, but once you listen this a couple of times you get used to it.

The Demo starts with a small instrumental, mostly keyboards, then "Falling Into Dark Apathy" comes to scene, a great song, with a fantastic instrumental beginning, a lot of changes and tempo breaks, also, some electronic beats? weird at first but I must say that melds into the music pretty well, when the vocals enter the arena they give the music a lot of energy, and the slower parts in the song are also great!
"Tempo Fugit" didn't caught my attention as much as the previous one, a nice long song, but after the 5 minute mark tends to get somewhat boring (even if it have an almost danceable part), The closer "Shadows In My Mind" is another catchy song, but no match to the first song.

At the end we have 5 songs: 2 instrumentals, and 2 "real" ones, but only 1 leaves an everlasting impression. I must give credit to the band for experimenting with some electronics here, and for doing music of their own and not copying Iron Maiden. Time will tell if these guys will make it to the big leagues and ink a record contract, hope they can endure the never ending curse of time.