Undisputed leaders of Italian metal scene, Rhapsody gained enormous popularity with their particular brand of neoclassical symphonic power metal, labeled by some as "Hollywood Metal." They formed in 1993, and released their debut album, "Legendary Tales" (1997) with th lineup of Luca Turilli (guitars, songs), Alex Staropoli (keys, songs), Alessandro Lotta (bass) Alex Holzwarth (drums), and a former Labyrinth vocalist Fabio Leone (known in Labyrinth as "Joe Terry"). "LT" was a huge success, followed by "Symphony Of Enchanted Lands" (1998) and "Dawn Of Victory" (2000), which gave Rhapsody a near superstar status. The fourth album, "Power Of The Dragonflame" (2002), showcased the band's slightly angrier edge, but overall they never strand too far away from the formula and lately showing strong signs of stagnation. Band's members are active in other projects, including a string of Luca Turilli's solo albums, rumored to be very similar to Rhapsody, and Alex Holwartz's participation in the Avantasia project. In 2004 the band was joined by none other than the actor/singer Christopher Lee ("Starwars," "Lord Of The Rings," etc.), who participated in the recordings of "Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II" album (2004) and "Magic Of The Wizard's Dream" EP (2005). However, that same year, due to a bizarre law suit, the band was forced to change its name. So, at the present time, the band is called "Rhapsody Of Fire," truly a dreadful name choice.
LEGENDARY TALES (1997)
BEST SONGS: "Warrior Of Ice," "Forest Of Unicorns," "Land Of Immortals"
1997 gave us several truly terrific albums, from Glory To The Brave and Iron Savior by the debutantes in metal, to Somewhere Out In Space and Accident Of Birth from the veterans. Legendary Tales is surely among the greatest debut works of the late 90s. Superb musicianship, solid vocals from Leone, great melodies and arrangements: they all contributed into making this masterpiece of power metal, although it can be equally attributed as "symphonic speed metal," "progressive metal," "baroque metal," "folk metal," "D'n'D metal," even "Hollywood metal." From the intro in Latin to the concluding epic title track, the album is a true pleasure to listen and to catch buzz to. Rhapsody should appeal to everyone who likes Hammerfall but has a problem with Cans' voice. Leone's voice is both emotional and mature, and, overall, the arrangements are more complicated than the ones of Hammerfall. The album also has good variety in it. Speed of "Warrior Of Ice," "Flames Of Revenge," "Land Of Immortals," and "Lord Of The Thunder" (all -- great tracks) neighbors with folk metal of "Forest Of Unicorns." The lyrics are also neat, I guess, my problem is lack of good rhymes (as a matter of fact, there are hardly any rhymes at all, same as in Tales Of Mystery And Imagination by Nocturnal Rites). But the texts are rather groovy, especially in "Warrior Of Ice," "Rage Of The Winter" and "Lord Of The Thunder." As some other reviewer pointed out, "definitely up to all the hype."
DAWN OF VICTORY (2000)
RATING: ****1/2
BEST SONGS: "Triumph For My Magic Steel," "Village Of Dwarves," "Holy Thunderforce"
At this pace, Rhapsody will soon take over Manowar's spot as "the most pompous metal band in the world." Man, this is one monster of pompousness of an album! If the song titles won't tell you the whole story, then perhaps the fact that the band has a separate "baroque recorders" section (and there's only one man listed, for some reason). Still not convinced? Well, every song has a choir section! Still not enough? The music features pieces from every baroque composer in history, along with some Russian and medieval folk pieces! And, of course, there's the omnipresent "Carmina Burana"-esque Latin intro! Speaking of song titles: how many more sexual references can you UNKNOWNLY fit into the names of the songs?? "Triumph For My Magic Steel"? "Holy Thunderforce" (i keep want to say "Holy thunderfuck")? And the best of all, "The Mighty Ride Of The Firelord"!! Developing this theme further: these have GOTTA BE the silliest, atrocious, most poorly translated from Italian, most ridiculous and terrible lyrics ever put down in a cd booklet!! Let me just give you a couple of examples:
"So come mighty warrior to light the lost hope for Tharos the Dragon and your cosmic soul... Now handle your emerald sword!" (there's that damn call-to-sex thing again!)
"And time has come now to ride before the end of the night, the march of the swordmaster to the unholy fight!" (and again!)
"The last fallen heroes will defeat your forces"
"Face me, evil bastard! Smell the hate of angels!"
"Skies are spitting holy fire, wisdom cries and deadly whispers flow"
and, finally, the best line of all:
"I will light your evil kingdom and your heart will burn in flames! Mutilated and dismembered, we'll soon rise to eat your brain!" sung in the happiest of voices!
Holy shit, these guys spend so much money on sound and production and they can't hire somebody who can teach them to use a dictionary?! Words "HOLY" and "FLAME" are used in EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SONG! They misuse the word "fallen" every time they say it! Frankly, they misuse EVERY word EVERY time they say it; this is some sort of an English teacher nightmare! Fabio clearly doesn't understand whattahell he's singing, because I can't imagine anybody singing all that crap with the straight face (of course, I could imagine Ripper singing "Jugulator" with the straight face, so what do I know?). Now, is the music bad? Not at all, AAMOF it's one of the year's best albums on musical merit alone, with tunes like the title track, "Triumph," "Thunderforce," "The Last Winged Unicorn," and even that friggin' "Mighty Ride" all constituting a premier power metal release with plenty of melody, keyboards, and cute guitar solos, pretending to be grandious and powerful. "Village Of Dwarves" has the same cute neo-folky vibe as "Forest Of Unicorns" from their debut. The story I'm not going to go into, because that never-ending saga shows complete lack of (a) English (b) brains (c) story-writing talent, which causes me a lot of distress, because I HATE shitty lyrics. Another complaint is that I actually like Fabio Leone's voice here somewhat less than on Legendary Tales where he sounded young and fresh. The artwork is also a little out-of-it (if that's the GOOD guy, I'd hate to see the villain). The production is perfect, and Sascha Paeth lets us know why in hell Heavens Gate hasn't done anything in years (oh yeah, Thomas Rettke is here too). So, to sum it all up: the music is great, the lyrics suck beyond belief, and somebody better find a "last winged unicorn" somewhere in Italy, to shove it up Luca Turilli's ass.
POWER OF THE DRAGONFLAME (2002)
RATING: ****
BEST SONGS: "Agony Is My Name," "March Of The Swordmaster," "Steelgods Of The Last Apocalypse"
Some things just never change, and two of them are Turilli's/Stauropoli's songwriting style (which means good melodies, fabulous arrangements, and ludicrous lyrics) and Leone's pronounciation of "wisssdom." Well, this album is not as interesting musically as its predecessor, but two things make it good: Fabio employs elements of growling every now and then, freshening it up a bit (most notably, on "When Demons Awake" and in the beginning of "Swordmaster"), and THE CHRONICLES OF AGALORD FINALLY COME TO AN END!! Finally, the story seems to be friggin' over. Not that anybody who listens to Rhapsody ever paid any attention to that nonsense story, but it's good to know it's finally over. Till the next album, at least. Everything else is kept the same. PotD also shows disturbing signs that the band is starting to run out of the musical ideas: some melodies are taken DIRECTLY from the songs off the previous albums (the opening riff to "Knightrider" we've all heard on "Emerald Sword" and the middle break in "Swordmaster" sounds exactly like "Village Of Dwarfs"). I would suggest the band to take a year off, and, during that time, listen to some Children Of Bodom for musical inspiration. So, to sum it up, if you liked all previous Rhapsody's works, you will not be disappointed, but this album is sure as hell not going to make Rhapsody any new fans.
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