Band:	The Storyteller
Album:	Tales Of A Holy Quest
Style:	Heavy metal, Power metal
Release date:	November 24, 2003
A review by:	Undercraft

01. Voices From The Past
02. Seed Of Lies
03. Conviction
04. A Holy Quest
05. Words Out Of Greed
06. Chamber Of Torture
07. The Mass
08. Blinded Eyes
09. When All Hope Has Faded
10. Trails Of Blood
11. ...And Still They Speak

I got to be honest, this is my first contact with the Storyteller, a long time ago a friend of mine showed me their previous work "Crossroad" and told me to listen to it, but when he told me it was another power Metal band, I thought, "Oh shit, another Power Metal band playing the same stuff that zillion of bands do", so that was my first encounter with these guys, I can't tell you if I was right or wrong, because I never got to listen that album, now I have in my hands their latest album "Tales Of A Holy Quest", so, let the games begin.

For starters, the cover art is great, all four band members carved into stone statues, very creative, liked it very much. As for the music, after your typical short and useless intro "Seed Of Lies" opens the album, nice song big catchy choir-like chorus, I think is an ok song, but next my friends, next is "Conviction" what a phenomenal song! One of the best Power Metal songs of the year!! Excellent arrangements, and I can't stop singing the chorus! Right now the whole album is worth while for this only song, just great.

As the album goes on, I found many other great songs, maybe not as good as "Conviction" but, hey! You can't have everything in life. Among my favorites are "Words Out of Greed" excellent fast paced song, "The Mass" have very nice acoustic parts worth mentioning, as for "When All Hope Has faded" is another great song with great acoustic moments, the closer "Trails Of Blood" is the typical epic closer of the album, great job on this one, really liked it.

As for the concept, this is an album dealing with the Witch burnings in the late 15th century, so the lyrics are about the struggle between the people and the church under that period. Is good to know that Power Metal bands are doing concept albums about things that really happened, because I'm tired of magical empires and evil overlords.


I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of all of those Power Metal bands playing all the same music over and over again, The Storyteller still have some clichés, but overall they have very good ideas and I'm sure that in future albums they will take this ideas and push them a step forward, and if they succeed, I'm sure they'll be big in the scene and not another clone. So far they have done a very good job staying away from the typical errors that all bands do, what does the future have in hand for The Storyteller? Maybe you should ask the fortuneteller that.