Artist: Seven Thorns
Title: Return to the Past
Type: Album
Label: Nightmare Records

I recently read a review of a Power Metal album by a French band called Lothringen. The review was analytical, informative and damning. It concluded “If they know how to play their instruments, in a global sense they still prove to be novices”. I simply cannot think of a better way of summarising “Return to the Past” by Danish band Seven Thorns. Galloping Masterplan-style Power Metal disappears here into a fog of anonymity. Without making notes, I cannot remember the middle section of this album. All I remember is waking up for the final track and the album fading away with a bland chorus. Yet comparing them to Masterplan is a compliment. The album has plenty of vigour, but whilst maintaining the comparison, there was no sparkle, no interest, no lyric or turn of musical phrase to make me sit up in excitement.

The first three tracks, to be fair were ok, and may even stimulate great delight in a lover of Power Metal, a genre with which I’m normally fine. “Liberty” gallops off in template fashion, double picking and all. There’s plenty of catchy melody and it’s fast while also being trite and corny. The vocalist, who ironically also plays in a band called Platitude, sounds rougher and flatter than you would expect of this style. Memories were triggered of watching At Vance and Firewind. The next two tracks vied for being my favourite on the album. First “End of the Road” is a bit heavier than “Liberty” and is certainly jolly. The guitar solo towards the end is excellent and relevant. The track is only marred by a dire chorus, which I guess is to invite crowd involvement but did nothing of the sort for me. “Through the Mirror” is more solid and has that chugging quality which I quite like in Power Metal. My notes after that state “nothing new”, “crass”, “aimless” and “the Power Metal equivalent of a pub bore”. An all-time low was reached on “Spread Your Wings” when such was the dearth of excitement that Mrs D and I started discussing the weather. To be fair, this track did pick up and momentarily there was atmosphere. “Fires and Storms” goes off like an express train, and for all its lack of originality in common with the others, instrumentally and in terms of speed and melody it deserves recognition. The title track ends it and for all its energy, it’s more template Power Metal with one quite nice classical style interlude in the middle but ultimately we’re no further forward than when we started on this galloping adventure.

“Return to the Past”, Seven Thorns’s second album, isn’t a complete nightmare. Indeed, it has no structural defects and it’s well played out. The melodies are catchy if lacking in variation, but it doesn’t really reach the epic qualities which would make this album special. Power Metal purists may like it but I guess they would have heard better examples of the genre. For the most part “Return to the Past” left me cold, just like the weather outside.

http://www.myspace.com/seventhorns
http://www.nightmarerecords.com