Aina
Days Of Rising Doom

THE REVIEW

AINA
"Days Of Rising Doom - The Metal Opera"
Transmission Records
Power, Heavy, Rock, 2004

Today, I don't want to present you with the usual power metal album with a monolithic sound focused solely on the speed and power of wild guitar solos. The AINA project is based on a concept album titled "Days of Rising Doom". It belongs to the "Rock Opera" genre and tells a story of a love affair in a distant land and its unexpected repercussions. The story is far from original and draws partly from "The Lord of the Rings" (location), "The Iliad" (war sparked by a beautiful woman in contention), and "Romeo and Juliet" (impossible love) featuring a final happy ending, leaving room for a sequel that has not yet arrived.

But what makes AINA a dizzying product and far less commercial and stereotypical than projects like Avantasia is the sound (only partly attributable to traditional power), the vocal interpretation by the performers, and the ability to compose songs that perfectly marry the story. Moments of pure despair, anger, reflection, happiness, and war unfold in 15 tracks that are almost perfect together. If we manage to read the booklet and follow the story even minimally, we can immerse ourselves in a tale that is narrated and sung with great professionalism. As proof of the project's quality and the intention not to trivialize everything by rehashing the overused clichés of the genre, note that Michael Kiske and André Matos do not engage in high notes. Strange but true, both are expressed in much lower and atypical tones with surprising results.

The fact is that the story is the true protagonist, and the music adapts to it. As I mentioned, the plot does not foresee particularly cheerful and joyful moments that could justify fast-paced and compelling up-tempos with airy choruses in which to unleash particularly high and clean voices. Here, the themes are pain, hope, despair, love, and fear. AINA is a more studied and complex work compared to what we're used to hearing in power metal. The songs are very varied as the dialogues between characters and the succession of events mean that the only gallops are present in "Flight Of Torek" and "Beast Within": the most combative moments of the plot. For the rest of the CD, we are faced with carefully crafted melodic lines, but nothing exaggerated, with effective pauses and orchestral interludes. Various singing styles coexist in an auditory journey to be savored by reading the tasteful and rich libretto. Among the best moments, I mention the very slow and desperate "Talon’s Last Hope" and "Serendipity". At the risk of repeating myself, I emphasize that the album should be listened to from start to finish, as for once, there are notable lyrics and characters to empathize with that connect chronologically within the tracklist.

Sascha Paeth and Miro have brought forth a different rock-metal piece. It is certainly not an easily digestible product, and I am sure that most young metal fans will not find it interesting as the sound is too reflective (slow) and not flashy enough for their standards. Paradoxically, this is AINA's strength: a beautiful work to discover listen after listen and capable of standing the test of time, anything but trivial and different from most melodic metal products.

Without pretensions to superiority, what I have described to you is an excellent example of refined metal, melodic, and could also appeal to many outside the power-heavy metal genre.

Tracklist

1. Aina Overture 2.01
2. Revelations 5.29
3. Silver Maiden 5.00
4. Flight Of Torek 5.21
5. Naschtock Is Born 4.40
6. The Beast Within 3.16
7. The Siege Of Aina 6.50
8. Talon's Last Hope 6.11
9. Rape Of Oira 3.04
10. Son Of Sorvahr 2.59
11. Serendipity 4.04
12. Lalae Amêr 4.13
13. Rebellion 4.01
14. Oriana's Wrath 6.12
15. Restoration 4.55.

Singers (info taken from wikipedia.it):

• Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath) - Talon
• Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween) - Narrator
• Andre Matos (ex-Shaaman, ex-Angra) - Tyran
• Candice Night (Blackmore's Night) - Oria
• Sass Jordan - Oriana
• Tobias Sammet (Edguy, Avantasia) - Narrator
• Marco Hietala (Nightwish) - Syrius
• Sebastian Thomson - The Storyteller
• Damian Wilson - King Tactius (Ayreon, Star One, Landmarq, ex-Threshold)
• Thomas Rettke - Torek (Sorvahr) (Kamelot)
• Olaf Hayer - Baktúk (Luca Turilli)
• Cinzia Rizzo - Opera Voice and Background Vocals' (Luca Turilli, Rhapsody, Kamelot)
• Rannveig Sif Sigurdardoffir - Opera Voice (Kamelot)
• Simone Simons - Mezzo-Soprano Voice (Epica)
• Oliver Hartmann and Herbie Langhans - The Prophets (Luca Turilli, Seventh Avenue)