Valkyrian Music

Band: Power Quest
Album: Blood Alliance
Release Year: 2011
Genre: Power Metal

“Blood Alliance” is the fifth and upcoming album by British power metal sextet “Power Quest”. The album features a whole new line-up.

The first track “Battle Stations” proves to be the beginning of a promising album with it’s drums and guitars intro which lead into a brilliant guitar solo. Despite being a two minute long instrumental, it is a very good track. The second track “Rising Anew” begins with a melodic guitar intro which is soon accompanied by some well-played drums. The keyboards fit themselves perfectly in as well. The vocals however don’t seem to sound powerful enough for this kind of music.

“Glorious” comes next. It begins with a very old-skool punk-ish sounding riff. The vocals soon kick in after and the riff turns dull. The track lacks energy during the vocal parts. Even the drums sound bleak alongside the vocals. The only really exciting part of the track is the guitar solo. “Sacrifice” is next and it begins with an old skool metal sounding riff which is soon accompanied the drums, the second guitar and keyboards. The riff retains some of it’s energy during in the vocal sections and this track is a slight improvement from the previous track. Like the previous track, the only exciting part of the track is the guitar solo.

After is “Survive” which begins with a wonderful mix of guitar, drums and keyboards, though this exciting combination is soon ruined by the vocals.  The guitar riffs on this track aren’t exactly well composed and they sound repetitive of the previous two tracks. The guitar solo sounds repetitive and dull as well. “Better Days” comes after and it begins with a slow synth-styled intro, something reminiscent of “Journey”, especially when the guitars kick in. The vocals sound more old skool on this track as well, which is an improvement compared to the other tracks. “Crunching the Numbers” begins with a fast-paced synth intro, mixed with some shredding guitars. The guitar riff sounds similar to a Dragonforce track, though this soon changes when the vocals some in.

“Only In My Dreams” and the title track “Blood Alliance”, like the previous tracks begin with synth intros before the guitars kick in. Both are dull and uninteresting tracks. The final track “City of Lies” begins with a guitar intro which is a welcome change, however, the track does revert back to synths dominating the music when the vocals come in. The guitar solo seems to be the only good part of this track. The rest of the track is just bleak.

“Blood Alliance” is a disappointing album. If the vocals had more power and less of a droning effect and if there was less use of synths, then this would be a much more enjoyable album. But if you enjoy synths and keyboards dominating metal, then this album will be right up your street. “Power Quest” are going to have to try a lot harder to release an album better than this mediocre production.

2.5/5

Nico Davidson

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This entry was posted on 25th February 2011 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Review with tags Bloodline, Dragonforce, Journey, Music, Power Metal, Power Quest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.