Review Summary: Playful, yet extremely technical. What a wonderful combination.
DragonForce
Inhuman Rampage
DragonForce are unlike any band I’ve ever heard before. They’re a paradox, wrapped in a conundrum, sautéed with whimsical riddles. Their unique blend of powerful instrumentals, easy listening vocals, ridiculously long (in a good way, I mean) solos and video game like FX has left me completely infatuated and pining for more. I haven’t been familiar with their work for more than a few months, but already they’ve firmly cemented a place in my heart. I think what grips me most about the band is the fact that they sort of combine power metal and pop punk. Now, before you flame me excessively, allow me to explain. When I say pop punk I’m not at all referring to the band’s sound. They sound nothing like pop punk. I’m talking about the concept. Pop punk can be vaguely defined as “fun” music and that’s just what this is. However, at the same time the music is embodying said fun atmosphere, it maintains the technical precision, heavily distorted, wank-tacular style that you would expect from any power metal band. For me, this is a magnificent combination because I love the technical and precise style you would typically expect from any metal band, but I’m not so much a fan of the gloomy atmosphere it has (most of the time). Well, I shouldn’t say I’m not a fan I just prefer (for lack of a more sophisticated term) “happy” music and that’s precisely what this is. I guess you could call it “happy metal”, but that’s probably not a good idea…
There’s an old saying
“You get out of something what you put into it”, and as odd as it seems it applies to this band. I don’t even think I need to say it, even those of you unfamiliar with DragonForce should be able to tell by their name, but what the hell: DragonForce are cheesy. For a lot of people this aspect is a major turn off, but I find it to be an extremely enjoyable aspect. It really depends how you look at their music. If you take the lyrics seriously in anyway, then you won’t enjoy this. They’re not meant to be taken seriously. They’re just silly tales about dragons, epic battles and other things of that nature. The best way to describe it is probably Dungeons & Dragons-esque ( for anyone unfamiliar with DOD, it was a board game that really popular years ago. It had lots of dragons, elves, dwarves and other assorted mystical characters). Alas, I can’t stress enough that the lyrics shouldn’t be taken seriously, or even given attention really. Just enjoy the sound of ZP Theart’s voice.
Once you get past the cheesiness factor it’s remarkably easy to get into DragonForce. Partially because of the easy listening atmosphere, yes, but it also has to do with the fact that they have talent coming out the wazoo. A chief source of this talent is definitely the two guitarists, Herman Li and Sam Totman. Simply put, they play faster and with more precision than any other guitarists I am aware of (though they have a reputation for being sloppy live due to the influence of alcohol). It’s not uncommon for their solos the reach an excess of two minutes and are always filled to the brim with duals, battles and FX that wouldn’t seem out of place in a game of Sonic The Hedgehog. For an example of this you could just throw a dart at the back of the CD and pick whatever track it lands on, but I’ll be a tad more specific.
Storming The Burning Fields has a phenomenal soloing section. It perfectly exemplifies all the things I mentioned a few sentences back. It’s also more bend orientated than most of the albums other solos, which made it seem somewhat emotional. Nothing really moving mind you, as I’ve mentioned this band in general isn’t really emotional. Solos aside, the guitar work is still splendid. All of the riffs and bridges were quite well written and complex.
The guitars aren’t the only instruments that deserve credit here. There was a lot of really great keyboard work scattered throughout the album. A prime example is unquestionably
Revolution Deathsquad. Some of the keyboard parts in there were brilliant. Most notably, the keyboard part after the first chorus. It’s really bass-y and sounds like something you would hear in the background of a sci-fi flick. Vadim actually is about as talented as the guitarists. He’s simply astonishing. It’s hard to take notice just from listening to the album, but you’d get the idea if you saw the band live. This guy’s been known to play with his nose at times! I think I’ll just lump the bass in with the keyboard here. Frankly, it had very little presence in the album. The only bass part that really stood out to me was a brief stint in
Body Breakdown. It was a great thirty seconds or so, even if the bass slightly obscured by the keyboard. I’m not going to say much else about it. The bass parts were well written, but didn’t stand out. Usually this would a pretty big flaw for me, but the keyboard’s presence more than makes up for the lack of bass.
So, based on what I’ve told you about how talented the instrumentalists are, you’re probably wondering what sort of talent the lyricist possesses. Well, nothing jaw-dropping, but ZP Theart was one of the biggest contributors to the album’s atmosphere. You see, he has a rather peculiar voice as far as power metal goes. It’s quite might pitched and very melodic. It almost sounds like something you would expect from a pop artist, just more on the angst side. It contributes greatly to the album’s easy listening style and the melodious feel makes some of the songs quite catchy. Furthermore, he has pretty good octave range. Nothing jaw-dropping, but certainly noteworthy. A prime example would be
Operation Ground And Pound. ZP’s voice goes from a semi-low tone at the beginning of the first verse to a rather high pitched
“YEAA!” at the very end.
There’s another old saying
“Nothing is perfect” and like the saying I gave you earlier this album is no exception. This album has a pretty nasty problem with repetition. This is most noticeable in the vocal melodies. It’s not uncommon for two different tracks to have extremely similar choruses. For example,
Through The Fire and Flames and
Operation Ground And Pound. Parts of those songs sound exactly the same. Another place repetition can be found are in Herman Li’s solos. This problem stems from the fact that he improvised all of his solos in studio. It’s remarkable that can improvise solos of such good quality, but since he was thinking them up on the spot he tends to reuse parts of his solos in different songs. That being said the repetition didn’t bother me a whole lot. I was too busy bouncing about happily in my chair as I listened to take particular notice of it.
The Band: ZP Theart- Vocals
Herman Li- Guitar
Sam Totman- Guitar
Vadim Pruzhanov- Keyboard
Dave Mackintosh- Drums
Frederic Lecercq- Bass, backing vocals
Pros: Catchy, melodic vocals
Instrumentals were jaw-dropping
Liked the atmosphere
Keyboard had great presence
Cons: Repetitive
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
ah well still thanks.This Message Edited On 01.08.07
