Excalion - Emotions

It’s surprising how Metal has evolved all over the years. Certainly the music isn’t the same that started out back then in the end of the 1960 and evolved from the 1970s and 1980s. But, in fact, there is a Metal subgenre which has remained pratically the same since the 1980’s when it started out. It’s Power Metal. It’s almost the same when Helloween, Viper, among others pioneers began to speed Metal up a little giving some more big guitars and fastened drumming. Through time some symphonic features have been added to turn it into even more epic acts. Yeah, Power Metal was taylored to be epic, anthemic, and big. That’s its most known facete. Yet, some bands are allowed to add some electronic effects or more keyboarding as Excalion do in “Emotions” to get an ever more epic outcome. Now with you, my child of the night, the subject of today’s review; Excalion with “Emotions.”

As aforementioned Excalion are a Power Metal that adds some more keyboarding to their songs as in “Sunshine Path” in order to make it bigger. Well, it works fine. Somehow the instrumental enlarges the voice and the song gets more emotional. As any Power Metal fan loves it. Indeed, this keyboarding style goes throughout the album with the same satisfactory outcome. Some songs as “The Golden Horde” sound borderline of Modern Metal as the electronic keyboarding takes the lead. In some ways, in some tracks, how would you like Ronnie James Dio to sing in a Power Metal band? It would be fantastic, wouldn’t it? That’s the impression we get from a track as “Lost Control” and Jarmo Pääkkönen vocals that get more and more linked to the man with the biggest voice of Metal. Jarmo Pääkkönen has such a powerful and strong voice that reminds the Metal god a lot. Fact is that Excalion managed to anthem most of their songs or with a strong chrous or with epic instrumentals. That’s the notion we get from tracks as “Solitude” and the rest of “Emotions” – by the way, I can’t deny it’s such an appropriate name.

Okay, Power Metal hasn’t changed a lot since its beginning, but who cares?

Excalion “Emotions” was released on September 27th via Scarlet Records.

Track Listing: