Rhapsody of Fire
The Frozen Tears Of Angels

2006-2010: difficult years for Rhapsody Of Fire, at odds with the burdensome patron of Magic Circle Records, Joey De Maio, but also years of lucrative reflection in which guitarist-mastermind Luca Turilli had the chance to reorganize his ideas and give new impetus to his musical creation, producing under the Nuclear Blast banner this "The Frozen Tears Of Angels", the seventh LP by RoF and third chapter of the Dark Secret Saga: after the symphonic, baroque, and grandiloquent "Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II" and the evocative and varied "Triumph Or Agony", it was time for an album decidedly cohesive and unified in its overall vision, much more streamlined in structure compared to its two predecessors, where orchestral arrangements and evocative but ultimately somewhat cloying narrated interludes are minimized to make way for a new, more immediate, and heavy style, somewhat like "Power Of The Dragonflame" but decidedly more stripped down and muscular, without sacrificing the pathos and epic atmospheres that have made Rhapsody Of Fire's history.

In line with an already established tradition "The Frozen Tears Of Angels" begins with the powerful wall of sound of the choruses in the intro "Dark Frozen World", which transport the listener without further ado to the opener "Sea Of Fate", not a rogue power-splinter like "Emerald Sword", not a rocky and epic mid-tempo like the previous "Unholy Warcry" and "Triumph Or Agony", but a more balanced musical construction, which finds its foundations in the drumming of Alex Holzwarth and its walls in the six strings of Luca Turilli, who once again becomes the primary architect of the Rhapsody-sound; excellent as always is the performance of the golden voice Fabio Lione, a true added value and defining element of this band; characteristics that generally also distinguish the following "Crystal Moonlight", further defined by the interplay between the choruses and the voice of Fabio Lione, which creates a chorus of great impact and atmosphere, and the pyrotechnic "Raging Starfire", the fastest and most distinctly power point of the album, with an LT hard and fast like we haven't heard in a while, crafting a sound that doesn't deny the past but is decidedly more mature and sober compared to the various "Holy Thunderforce" or "The Last Angel's Call", as well as the album's ballad, "Lost In Cold Dreams", which sets aside the somewhat monotonous lyricism of the past "Lamento Eroico" and "Son Of Pain" in favor of a more shadowy and enveloping atmosphere, on which stands a Luca Turilli who once again confirms himself as the absolute protagonist of the sound of "The Frozen Tears Of Angels". Completing the album are the visionary ride "Reign Of Terror", in which Turilli and Staropoli equally share the merit of a masterful composition where choruses and orchestrations blend with the impetus of the guitar-drums sonic fabric, with an imperial Fabio Lione as the perfect interpreter and link, and "Danza di Fuoco e Ghiaccio", a contemplative but lively folk-metal ballad that serves as a suggestive moment of pause and reflection amid the speed and impetus of the rest of the album, which concludes with the eleven minutes of the title track, a perfect miniature reproduction of the style and personality of this chapter of Rhapsody's history: no longer a grandiloquent and mutable suite but a song carved in a single block: solemn, atmospheric, and grandiloquent yet always direct, fast, and simple in structure, without great digressions and tempo changes, closing in great style an excellent album, mature and devoid of dead spots.

And so, despite my initially skeptical and distrustful approach, Rhapsody proved still capable of winning me over: the idea of a "monolithic" band stubbornly clinging to the same sounds has always been a squalid stereotype as well as a historical falsehood: the RoF is a project with a well-defined and certainly niche personality, but in its genre, while maintaining its own canons and style, there has always been a variation of sounds and atmospheres from album to album, in this case even more markedly than in the past. "The Frozen Tears Of Angels" sounds like the product of a band more mature, stronger, and above all united like a clenched fist, starting with the two founding members, Turilli, a re-found guitarist and as always an excellent musical screenwriter, and Staropoli, an excellent co-pilot always crucial for the band's fate though less defining than in the recent past, and this can only be a sign of a bright future for a great band to which I pay my heartfelt and warmest welcome back.