Reviewed - 03/05/06

Warfair
[Dark Forest Productions]

Power Metal? Power Metal??? The genre just needs to die!!! Honestly, of the thousands of dragon slaying, sword wielding, princess saving Power Metal bands out there, I can count on both hands and maybe one foot how many bands I actually like from this genre of music. I like Blind Guardian and I like old Helloween and I like... uhhhh... hmmmm. Elvenking! Are Helloween and Blind Guardian even true Power Metal? That's debatable. Anyway, as you can tell this is not a genre of music I like very well. The new album "Warfair" from Greece's Wolfcry just screams Power Metal, and I don't care for that at all, but they do have some other elements I find a bit interesting. Let's delve into those, shall we?

Like I said, at its base "Warfair" has quite a large Power Metal sound. You know... that almost technical and over produced guitar sound that is borrowed from the Thrash and Speed Metal bands of the 80's? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I love Thrash and Speed Metal, but the way Power Metal adapted that guitar sound and overproduced it never appealed to me. Wolfcry though are amazing musicians, I'll give them that. Guitarists Simos and John are amazing at what they do and come up with great harmonies and some pretty damn heavy riffs. This is where the music shines in my opinion, the guitars. They from time to time will stray into Thrash and have this stop and go technique that kicks ass! These two guitarists work extremely well together, and it would be wise if they always played in the same band together. Another standout part of the album is the drumming by Andreas "The Wizard". He does an excellent job at laying down a backbone for the two guitarists to work from. He's extremely talented and can play extremely fast while not ever sounding sloppy. He's almost a technical drummer, but has too much warmth and personality in his drumming style to be called a tech drummer. So, you're wondering why if I like most of the musicians how can I not care for the album that much? It's simple, I just don't personally like the style of music. Also, I have to say that while the keyboardist can play well, the settings he uses on his keyboard make the music sound fruity.

The worst aspect of all about the album in my opinion are the vocals. Costas, the vocalist for Wolfcry, is just too much of a typical Power Metal vocalist for me. The vocals are way too light and floaty for me, sounding at times like Andi Deris, so I naturally am not going to like them. The lyrics were not included with the promo, so I can't comment on them, but I have a feeling the song titles pretty much explain the lyrics.

The production on the album is great, and at the Thrashier and more Traditional Metal moments when the Power Metal is left behind, the sound gets better and better the louder you turn your stereo up. That said, the keyboards are too loud in the mix for my tastes.

The cover art for "Warfair" is pretty damn cool. They use wolves on all of their album covers, but this one looks to be their best piece of cover art yet. The C.D. I reviewed was a promo so I can't comment on what else may be included with the actual C.D. when you buy it, but this promo also had some drawings of each member in the band.

You know what would be great? The second to last track on this album called "6 Must Die" is perfect! Costas uses a different vocal style on this track and there are no keyboards at all. If they could do this for an entire album, I'd probably love the hell out of it! I hate giving a band this talented a sub-standard rating, but on the same hand I can't give them a good rating solely based on talent if I don't like the style of music they play. Here's to hoping Costas picks a different vocal style and the keyboardist learns how to change the setting on his keyboard on their future albums. If you're an established fan of Power Metal you'll love this, so add two rating points to my rating.