NOSTRADAMEUS - review added 5th November 2009
Album Review: Illusion's Parade (2009)
For fans of: Power Metal... and incorrect spellings of future-predictors
Nostradameus - Freddy Persson on vocals, Jake Fredén and Lennart Specht on guitars, Thomas Antonsson on bass
and Esko Salow on drums - has been around since the middle of 1998, when Freddy and Jake were on their way to watch a Gamma Ray and Iron Saviour gig. The guys were listening to bands like Helloween, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden on the car stereo and started to talk about forming a band playing a similar sort of metal.
After a time spent compiling a band, their first album Words of Nostradameus, ended up being released in 2000. Over the next few years, alongside a number of line-up changes, The Prophet Of Evil (2001), The Third Prophecy (2003), Hellbound (2004) and Pathway (2007) were unleashed. 2009's Illusion's Parade is (I'm sure you can work this out yourself) Nostradameus' 6th album.
The sound is interesting. It certainly isn't standard power metal, even if its roots point in that direction. The music is hard hitting with a layer of symphonic majesty, a strong feel of mysterious storytelling and a fine variety of slow and fast sections. Think somewhere between Iced Earth, Judas Priest, Megadeth and classical film score compositions of the type John Williams is famed for. It's a right old mixture, but it works brilliantly.
Stand out moments include the chorus of the opening track 'Walk In Pain', the biblically proportioned 'The Mariner' and the stupendously heavy broken beats of 'Eclipse Of The Sun-Cult'. To be honest it's all bloody good and finding anything bad in any of the tracks would be splitting hairs.
Great release this. Definitely more of an overall experience than individually sublime songs, but fabulous all the same.
Check out... The rhythms. Oh, the rhythms!
Track List:
01. Walk Of Pain
02. Art Of Deception
03. The Mariner
04. Nothing
05. Eclipse Of The Sun-Cult
06. Broken Soul (Virgin Mary)
07. Illusion's Parade
08. Armageddon Forever
09. Time For Madness
Label: AFM Records
Artist's website(s): Nastradameus , MySpace
