2006-08-08
Young American guitarist Matt Moliti has delivered quite a surprising debut album in the form of Dark Empire, a well produced piece of neo-classical power metal, a bit reminiscent of
Symphony X. Although the album is mainly a showpiece for Moliti’s (considerable) guitar playing abilities, it also benefits from a strong support cast in the from of Swedish vocalist Jens Carlsson (
Persuader,
Savage Circus) and Finish drummer Teemu Tahkanen, with bassist Noah Martin completing the line up, they all perform admirably, but its certainly Moliti's solid playing that takes center stage here.
Most of the material is extremely European sounding, the two first tracks being perfect examples, both tracks have strong melody lines and
Malmsteen influenced guitar/keyboards (also preformed by Moliti) solo segments, Carlsson has a strong enough voice with the right amount of throatiness to make the vocals un-kitschy, and both tracks work well.
“A Soul Divided” sees the vocals handled by both Carlsson and Moliti himself, who performs death metal growls that sit in with Carlsson’s melodic ones, it works rather well, and the song has a more sophisticated, almost progy approach to it. “Distant Tides”, the title track, slows down the rhythm and again injects some more prog elements into the mix.
Heaviest track here is “Northern Sky”, a simple and heavy song that sees Carlsson himself doing growls along with his melodic vocals. One of the things I liked about Moliti's writing and playing, is that unlike some shredders, he doesn’t not take over the song completely, he is concentrates more on writing solid tracks and less on showing off, his playing is strong and impressive, but he doesn’t overdo it.
As I said, this is an extremely worthy debut album, well worth a listen for melodic metal fans, and I'm sure Moliti and friends have quite a future laying in store for them.
Alon Miasnikov
