Labyrinth
Labyrinth

THE REVIEW

The Bossi-Fini law has also claimed victims within the metal community.
The first to be affected were Labyrinth. Roberto Tiranti, Andrea Cantarelli, Cristiano Bertocco, Andrea De Paoli, and Mat Stancioiu found themselves forced to replace the previous and dangerously exotic (and pathetic especially because no one understood by what criteria surnames like Bertocco were replaced with Breeze) Rob Tyrant, Anders Rain, Chris Breeze Andrew Mc. Pauls (for goodness' sake) and Mat Stancioiu who indeed is actually named Mat Stancioiu, although soon, we are sure, he will change to a more reassuring Matteo Stanconi.

2003 was therefore a year of heavy changes for our homegrown (finally we can say with certainty) Labyrinth. Following the contradictory Sons Of Thunder (brrrrrr what a menacing title) which, beyond the actual beauty of the tracks (some really stunning), boasted a production worthy of a poorly made bootleg and the various controversies that arose afterwards, it was truly time for a change...
Meanwhile, the axeman/guitar hero/magic six-string wizard/oh no, I have a seven-string/follow only the dots, but are there dots on a seven-string?/I wrote numbers on the fretboard Olaf Thorsen, (artist name Carlo Magnani or maybe the opposite, but this is something he might also not know anymore) left Labyrinth to devote himself to his side project Vision Divine (um?) and Labyrinth thought that with the power-man out of the way, was finally the occasion to change genre and bring an incredible and dazzling innovation within their music. They deliberately self-titled this their fourth album for Century Media (because power pays, always) to make it clear to everyone that this would be the first album of a new band, sure the name would remain but things would have profoundly changed, oh yes, and how they would have changed!

Jazz? Black Metal? Progressive Death? What are the reborn Labyrinth doing now? Well, obviously! Power Metal! But they have changed a lot too. No, what am I saying? They haven't changed at all, the power-speed is always nice and tight, and for fear of being repudiated, they didn't even feel like giving up the canonical two power metal staple tear-jerker ballads, among others, the two weakest episodes of the record.

Apart from the nonsense, Labyrinth has indeed done something excellent, certainly not straying much from Sons Of Thunder but this is not a big problem because few will have actually managed to listen to that album.
The vocal lines are all spot-on (even if after a while they wear out), and despite some choruses not being great, there are bridges that genuinely give you chills like in Synthetic Paradise (introduced by a minute of jungle and drum & bass), yet another merit are the, albeit slight, progressive components imported from the previous Sons Of Thunder, also excellent is the band's technical performance which pounds and grinds power riffs with disarming ease; compliments especially to Mat Stancioiu who with his very cymbal-heavy style at times recalls the best Richard Christy.

An excellent album, therefore, by a band reborn under the sign of very moderate innovation but which remains firmly anchored to a formula tried and tested with success countless times.