Debut album by keyboard wizard Mistheria and boy can he play! Impressive cast list on here as well including Barry Sparks (Dokken), George Bellas, Rob Rock, Anders Johnsson (Hammerfall) and Jeff Kollman to name a few.

For pompous, OTT arrangements you’d be hard pushed to find more outside of a Valensia or Rhapsody album. Mistheria has created some wonderful arrangements like ‘Praelludium Opus 71’, a classical sounding piece conjuring up visions of medieval days and warriors.

But the you get power metal by number in ‘The Chimera’ and ‘King Midas’. Rob Rock puts in a suitably fine vocal on the blistering metal of ‘Zeus Will Storm the Earth’ and ‘Titans’. The song titles are very Manowar though ‘Dynasty of Death’ and ‘Dragon’s Teeth’ - nothing wrong with that but I just felt this has all been done before and better - the aforementioned Manowar for starters.

Many prog/power metal fans will enjoy this but for me it needed a stronger vocalist (bar Rob Rock’s tracks of course) and more emphasis on song structure. Yes it’s great to listen to keyboard runs and guitar solos but not on every track and at the expense of the song’s overall sound.

Label website

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Review by Jason Ritchie

***** Out of this world | **** Pretty damn fine |
*** OK, approach with caution unless you are a fan |
** Instant bargain bin fodder | * Ugly. Just ugly