Adagio
Sanctus Ignis

THE REVIEW

In 2001, Adagio was born, in French territory, and thanks to these excellent musicians, "Sanctus Ignis" was released, an album that blends various musical genres, primarily progressive and power metal. Identified as a meeting point between our own Labyrinth and the all-American Symphony X, our musicians present us with 10 delightful tracks in which the prog component prevails above all others, resulting in a sound that may seem cold to many, as technique often overrides emotions in several passages. Let's analyze each song one by one.

The album opens with "Second Sight", a song that immediately showcases the technical qualities of the group's five members: the song navigates prog/power realms, with Stephan Forté's guitars setting the rule throughout the piece. The numerous tempo and key changes of the excellent vocalist, along with a beautiful atmosphere, make the 6 minutes and 7 seconds pass very quickly. Track number 2 is represented by "The Inner Road", an excellent song beginning with a very fast and precise guitar solo: the structure of the song is varied and complex, with very high and top-level vocal peaks and impressive keyboards. The only note is on the drums, which, in my opinion, uses the cymbals too little in favor of perhaps excessive double-bass patterns. "In Nomine", the third song, is certainly the strangest track on the album, as it opens with a very peculiar keyboard with a vaguely medieval flavor: however, when all the instruments join in, the song becomes much more aggressive, also thanks to an organ with a rather dark sound; this time tempo changes are less frequent, in favor of greater linearity in structure. Splendid guitar solo towards the end of the song. The 4th song, and again the presence of an organ, but this time it does not help make "The Stringless Violin" a representative song. Considered somewhat the weak point of the album, the song is still appreciable regarding the vocal lines and the very pleasant central guitar solo. We come to the album's longest song: "The Seven Lands Of Sin", a beautiful song that proves to be aggressive in some parts and more evocative in others, utilizing its length to unleash various tempo changes, solos, and technical prowess, among which the best seem to be those executed by the piano. "Order Of Enil" is another of the album's strong pieces, presenting itself as an aggressive piece rich in tempo changes where the guitar once again "reigns": completely instrumental, the track flows pleasantly and lightly. The seventh track, also the title track, seems to me the least incisive song on the album, presenting as a fairly classic and predictable prog/power piece, which remains a good song but nothing more. We return to intense action with "Panem Et Circenses", certainly the best song of the lot, spectacular and dark, the song flows with pleasure, and among tempo changes and dark, almost gothic keyboards, the singer offers a truly deep and heartfelt vocal performance. "Immigrant Song" presents itself once again as an excellent song, but this time much closer to power territories, with double bass roaring everywhere and guitar solos galore. The 4 minutes and 54 seconds of instrumentals unfortunately go by excessively fast and lead us to the album's outro "Message To Stephan Forté", a track which unfortunately feels as unfinished as Schubert's (for clarification, the one that opens Angel's Cry by Angra).

So we have reached the end of the album, which, although not a record that will go down in metal history, presents itself as a high-quality product with excellent production and an excellent performance by all band members, except for an almost absence of the bass.