Kamelot
One Cold Winter's Night

THE REVIEW

I was there, on the ground, scared and bleeding, looking at my hand: the one that, stoic like a frontline warrior in Ridley Scott's “Gladiator,” sacrificed itself on that path-battlefield in favor of my head. The skin of the palm looks like a tent raised where soil and pebbles have entered to party warmly, sipping a good glass of platelets hard at work. I try to push back these rebellious stone fans by using my shirt as a broom. Who knows, I think to myself as I bandage it as best as I can, maybe the wound will heal, and some tiny pebble will remain there forever to keep me company. Like certain memories, there is no mercury chrome or aureomycin that can hold them. They surface in my mind randomly: often, it's the notes of a CD that bring them back to the surface and then crash them onto the shore of the hypothalamus.

Roy Khan's voice is not only beautiful and technically impeccable. Over the years, I've often enjoyed having it listened to by ears accustomed to completely different musical genres, and that voice conquered them all. “Really crappy music: a guarantee as always Paolo, but this time you brought out an amazing voice!” One after another, pins fall, struck by the perfect trajectory of a strike. In this live album “One Cold Winter’s Night” from 2006, Kamelot shows an enviable amalgam, and with a good number of albums under their belt, they manage to offer the audience a top-notch tracklist. But everything pales in comparison to his performance: simply dizzying.

Touching, sweet, and fragile highs like the first part of “Elizabeth” bring to mind those lips that had become dry during those months; those lips that approach, hesitant at first, and then, suddenly, like magnets find themselves united again. They discover themselves to be thirsty and passionate once more, joining in an infinite kiss that turns back time. Pure melody in the duet with the beautiful Simone Simons of Epica in the harmonious “The Haunting” and then again, with “Moonlight”, to resurrect those romantic moments at dusk with the light wind as the only warm blanket on a bench and an ice cream melting amidst stupid laughter. Arguments and misunderstandings for absurd reasons that sprouted like mushrooms overnight after a downpour. In the blink of an eye, I see them resurface and come to life in memories thanks to the powerful “The Black Halo”, “Soul Society”, and “When The Lights Are Down”: rare metallic outbursts with fierce riffs well embedded in melodic lines that surely catch on in the chorus phase.

And then you make peace, and everything seems lighter, easier, and more airy; the melodic and stereotyped up-tempos like a Walt Disney movie “Center Of The Universe”, “Farewell”, and “Karma” capable of ending with a crescendo of fireworks on the scorching sheets. And then something cracks: no, it's not a healthy outburst, it's really a crack no putty can hold. A breach that will inevitably ruin everything. The sadness that “Abandoned” manages to convey brings all this back to the surface and almost makes me want to go open the drawer up there, in my room, to reread a bit of the past in the form of sappy notes and maybe regret it; why not?

"One Cold Winter’s Night" is such an engaging CD that it cost me 2,500.00 euros. Safety distances and wet road, reads the sad report written in typical and unreadable Italian bureaucratic language. Nonsense. The real reason I ended up kissing the metallic rear of that gray Golf is called “Nights Of Arabia.” I still remember it resounding while I try to remove myself from the airbag in an adrenaline bath. Damn Roy Kahn!