Ancient Bards – The Alliance of the Kings

Releasedate: 16-03-2010; Label: Limb Music
By: Elvira Visser

The Italian band Ancient Bards has set foot on the ground back in 2007. It took them a year to release their first demo titled “Trailer”. The inspiration for this album was a mixture between the Nordic sagas and Japanese stories taken from the Final Fantasy series as underlying themes. The band has developed their sound over the years when they shared the stage with bands like Turisas and White Skull. In the summer of 2009 they felt they should record their first album. For this album they work together with the Epic Choir Toto Corde and several guest musicians.

With “The Alliance of the Kings” the band hopes to show that they have their own visions about their music and are not merely copycats, and likes to prove that they deliver a versatile album. They make powermetal but with a good dash of the female fronted epic metal sound that bands like Delain and Epica have as well. The band does use and interesting theme and classic arrangements. Sara Squadrani has a very powerfull voice.

“The Birth of Evil” has a power-metal sound to it and the keyboard sound quite familiar and to top it all the melody of the vocals has some European Song Contest sound to it. The presence of the keyboard gives their sound a little different touch but personally I am not a fan of the keyboard in their tracks the parts without come across more strong. However those who have passion for powermetal should really buy this album because that Sara has a strong voice, the music has a nice rhythm and the musicians know their techniques. “Nightfall in Icy Forst” starts with the choir and orchestral sounds much reminding me of Epica. Sadly it does not evolve in a full song. “Faithful to Destiny” has a very nice dramatic middle.

Overall I think this band did sound a bit similar to some other bands but you can hear they try to find their own sound, which is hard these days. With delivering this, I think a lot of powermetal and symphonic metal fans will like “Ancient Bards”.

Tracklist: 01. Prelude 02. The Birth Of Evil 03. Four Magic Elements 04. Only The Brave 05. Frozen Mind 06. Nightfall In Icy Forest 07. Lode Al Padre 08. Daltor The Dragonhunter 09. Farewell My Hero 10. Faithful To Destiny

Links:
Ancient Bards MySpace