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Labyrinth: Labyrinth
Labyrinth - Labyrinth - [Century Media]

2003-10-15

It seems that at a certain stage in their lives, all of Italy’s pizza makers and kallzone bakers have decided to create metal, and fine metal, at that.
How else can you explain the barrage of bands hailing from the boot-country in the last decade?
The truth is that most of those bands probably grew upon the fertile ground planted by such Italian bands as ‘Goblin’, the prog band that originated in the early 70’s and became famous for creating eerie yet plummeting soundtracks to the films of horror maestro Dario Argento.
Another of the forefathers of Italian metal are forgotten thrash legends – ‘Bulldozer’,
Whose record – ‘Day Of Wrath’ (1985) is one of the mythological thrash pieces of the 80’s.
Yet labyrinth and similar Italian bands have taken their music to regions more traditionally explored by German heavy metal bands.
The band was founded in the early 90’s, and had a complicated relationship with the most successful of Italian heavy metal bands – rhapsody.
Rhapsody, whose vocalist, Fabio Lione, was labyrinth’s original singer, have become quite a sensation in the world of heavy metal, with labyrinth always a step behind them.
Yet the resemblance between the bands ends there, while rhapsody went into the more epic and grandiose “Hollywood metal’, labyrinth are inclined towards traditional, hard rock, yet which is faster and smarter than most heavy metal bands.
The fact that their third album is self-titled, points to several changes taken by the band, the foremost one is changing labels, from ‘Metal Blade’ to ‘Century Media’.
Starting with the opening track “The Prophet”, which plummets immediately into a fast and furious guitar riff, it dawned on me that I’m in for quite a treat.
The singer, Roberto Tiranti, displays an impressive vocal range, anyone who’ll listen to his scream at the end of the first track will unashamedly agree with me.
This firm slab of metal continues with such excellent cuts as ‘Livin’ In A Maze’, and ‘Slave To The Night’.
The charm, I think, that the band holds, is at their basic lack of assumptions, they just play fast, energetic metal, with the kitsch factor lowered to a minimum.
This is not an album for the thrill seeking head banger, yet it grows on you, and comes highly recommend by me!

Alon Miasnikov



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