2002-12-22
Occasionally, a music fan encounters an album which, at the first, superficial view, has all the odds turned against it. From the infamous (to a certain extent) name of the artist, through the album’s cover and title, to the opening notes, all the preceding signs and impressions point towards an inevitable, impending dullness. But still, surprisingly, a peculiar connection is achieved between the pessimistic, prejudiced listener and the expectdly poor album. And lo! He actually manages to enjoy it quite a bit.
Such an occurrence I experienced when reviewing the latest Pegazus CD, “The Headless Horseman”. Every astimation regarding the contents of the CD, based on my prior knowledge, led me to expect another frustrating hour of overdone, worn, allegedly epic and dramatic Hard-Rock/ Heavy Power Metal. The main causes for this might be traced on the melodramatic song titles, lame fantastic-militant album cover, and my past brief, unyielding acquaintence with the band’s works. And indeed, every verbal description I might tag to the album will verify, in the reader’s mind, my above mentioned low expectations: this album sounds like a work of a Cover Band, performing alternative versions of a collection of never-heard songs by 80’s and 90’s Metal bands. It seems that Pegazus were influenced on this release by nearly every single band which has been active (on certain sections of the Metal spectrum) in the past two decades. For an extremley partial example, we might mention notable, clear influences of Ozzy Osbourne’s 80’s material, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Rush, MSG, Thin Lizzy and Dream Theater. Just to name a few. And imperatively, let us not forget to mention the spiritual presence of about every Power Metal band ever existed. Even as keeping in my mind that most of the artists are influenced by their sires in one way or the other, the problem is that Pegazus barely supplies the listener with any fertile original idea, to evolve and outgrow the basics of their predecessors’ spirit . The album imparts the listener with a continous deja-vu notion, clarifying that, even if he can’t pinpoint the original source of the given track, it surely has been done before, And, most probably, much more than once.
These questionally authentic compositions are wrapped in a consistent, steady sound, mostly characterized by its thinness (featuring very basic Metal arrangements) and forthrightness. The band members’ musicianship skills ranges between mediocre to good, showing satisfactory technical abilities and coordination, yet no excellence whatsoever.
And still, as hinted earlier, I must paradoxically admit I enjoyed this dubious album. I believe that the affection I feel for it mainly stems from its obvious unpretentiousness. Although this assertion is based solely on my personal intuition, I reckon that Pegazus members are aware of the wide-spectral-cloning status of their album just as much as I do. The band doesn’t have any aspirations to be groundbraking, Innovative, renewing or unique in any sort of way. It has chosen the quest of providing the listener a light, airy hour of background Metal-tinted nostalgic melodies, accompanying him throughout his daily routine, perhaps occasionally rewarding his lips with a spasm of a slightly entertained smile. And that mission is accomplished quite elegantly. As you probably have a limited budget, and you must carefuly pick for purchase the peculiar albums which maintain the highest creative level, I can’t recommend you to choose this one. Nevertheless, if you incidentally encounter it on a discount bin, you might as well should.
Tom Orgad
