Tracklisting:
- The Fading Light
- As Darkness Falls
- Bound
- Ghost of My Memory
- Premonition
- Haunted
- Run Away
- Eyes of Black
- Clockwork
- Voyage
Previous Spellcaster albums have had a much more traditional thrash feel, and while going through this album It feels like the band is really starting to come in to their own and bring the Power Metal element to the forefront much more, which I must say I enjoy very much as a whole, but as the album begins with an intro track The Fading Light, it is very synth-oriented and doesn’t stand up to the rest of the album as an intro track that pushes me into an otherwise good album. As Darkness Falls has a very mid 80’s feel to it as it begins as far as tone and how much music is being thrown at you at once combined with being a bit directionless musically at times, but overall a very epic/power start to an album that only gets stronger as it goes on.
Bound has the ability to be a fan favorite for anyone that runs in this genre, Tyler Loney does a phenomenal job on vocals to carry over the guitars, but not quite push too hard or drag them out to water down the music. Towards the end of the track you find yourself stomping your foot on the ground and banging your head to dueling guitars wanting to pump your fist in the air. From there we go into Ghost of My Memory, one of the faster tracks on this album, yet lyrically really grabs you, and hell – relating to the music is what it’s all about, until we thrash our way into Premonition, an absolutely killer “intro” track of sorts into Haunted, an interesting track that bobs my head, but somewhere falls just short of greatness.
Into Run Away, which reminds me of early Iron Maiden, when they still had their balls fully in tact and knew how to write raw/thrash riffs still. A very impressive track that makes me feel like I should be popping this cassette into my Jeep’s player and blasting down the freeway in a denim jacket right down to the music pausing for a quick double vocal and then bring you back to your journey. Then into Eyes of Black, which has a similar riff in the beginning to Run Away and feels like a seven minute continuation, but a second half of your journey that takes us into the dark side of the forest as the path gets smaller and smaller and our torch is running low. Tyler once again doesn’t overdo it with the vocals, but fills it in just perfectly, leaving us with the music to do the talking and to keep us company through our journey.
At last, we come to the closing argument if you will with Clockwork and Voyage, both of which seem to play very well off of each other to give us two perspectives at the end and close out and album that overall holds everything one could want in an album such as this. At times, some of the longer tracks have some down time and tend to drag out a bit, but luckily they are able to recover with strikingly good guitar solos, etc.. to bring us right back in. Vocally, the choice of lyrics blends great with all of these songs, giving us exactly what we need and expect from Power Metal, and yes folks, Power Metal does in fact have certain formulas to stick by, which this album as a whole – does!
In closing, for a self-produced, self-distributed album, if you’re a fan of Power Metal or Thrash, it’s a must have to add to your collection, I only wish it was available on cassette!
Spellcaster is:
Tyler Loney – Vocals
Cory Boyd – Guitar
Bryce R. Vanhoosen – Guitar
Gabriel Franco – Bass
Colin Vranizan – Drums
