Ελληνικά
Genre: Heavy Metal /Power Metal
Country: Germany
Label: Massacre Records
Year: 2015
The first time I listened to “Ravenlord” I got mad about Stormwitch. It’s been 20 years since then and they still are one of my favorite groups, even though I think they’re one of the most underrated bands in this genre. How could this be the way round? They’ve released benchmark albums in heavy metal genre, like “Walpurgis Night”, “Tales of Terror” and “Stronger than Heaven”. Later on, they got into more adventurous melodic paths, flirted with AOR, but they’ve always stood on a decent level, except for the lousy “Shogun”.
“Season of the Witch” comes 11 years after their last studio album, with the additions of Ralf Rieth and Volker Schmietow on guitars and Micha Kasper on drums, after Lee Tarot’s death (guitarist on their golden ‘80s era). Even though it’s been long since the “Witchcraft” release, we now have to deal with a sound closer to the one of their second era. No surprises; the album moves on more power metal paths with some – often – hard rock and AOR passings. If I have to choose something that stands out, I guess I’d choose the more heavy metal tracks, like “Last Warrior”, the album opener “Evil Spirit” and the title track. Thereafter, I’d say they reminded me of “Beauty and the Beast” at some points, in the mid-tempo tracks (i.e. ” True Until the End”, “Harper in the Wind”) and those AOR ones, like “Taliesin”, which is not bad, but in “Runescape”, they overdid it.
Overall, the result isn’t bad, but left me with the taste that something’s missing. Maybe the production is poor or maybe they didn’t meet my expectations, since they’ve written tracks like “Priest of Evil”, “Sword of Sagon”, “Emerald Eye” etc. If anyone wants to check the band, you should definitely start with those three albums I mentioned at the beginning. This release, without being disappointing, I think it’ll fade out soon. I should be strict with my ranking, as on one hand I think they have so much more to give and on the other hand that they hadn’t the luck to release “Season of the Witch” on more productive and “good – timed” era for heavy metal (in contrast with last year, when it could have been one of the best releases of the year)
3,5/6
