Rhapsody
Rain Of A Thousand Flames

The bitterness left in my mouth by "Rain Of A Thousand Flames," the mini-album by our renowned Rhapsody, is something I still need to get used to. Yes, indeed, it was an album I particularly relied on, primarily because it was supposed to be the album of revenge against all those who said that "Down Of Victory" was not on the level of SOEL. However, it turned out to be a disappointment even for what it offers, which is absolutely not of good quality, quite the opposite... I want to analyze the songs to make the situation clearer for you, and I don't know if I'll succeed.

Track 1: "Rain Of A Thousand Flames," the most beautiful Rhapsody song! Yes... very fast, melodic, aggressive, powerful, in a word SPLENDID; sure, maybe it doesn't have lyrics worthy of the best writers, but it doesn't matter because what compensates is truly grandiose, the atmospheres created by the talented Staropoli's keyboards are as beautiful as they are aggressive. The band boasts an excellent performance throughout the song, which is rich in double-bass drumming (very violent), very fast solos, more than good bass sections, and a fantastic voice. (rating 10) The atmosphere is that of a masterpiece, which unfortunately does not hold up beyond this track. After the title-track, it moves to an instrumental that is particularly calm and not even too bad, "Deadly Omen," the real problem is that it turns out to be a bit overused in its orchestrations and melodies (rating 5), melodies that lead us to "Queen Of The Dark Horizons," a fairly particular song, I almost dare to say half-successful: I'm sorry to define a track this way, which if it were free of an exhausting intro of about three minutes, would be truly remarkable. "Queen..." turns out to be one of the songs with the best lyrics ever written by Turilli, and the heavy and dark, very slow atmospheres are also of great quality. Taken from "Phenomena" by Simonetti, the track flows quite well, if it weren't ruined as mentioned by a truly unnecessary intro. (rating 7) And now take a deep breath because the next 23 minutes of this mini will perhaps be the worst ever conceived on a musical level: the musical quartet "Tears Of A Dying Angel," "Elnor's Magic Valley," "The Poem's Evil Page," and "The Wizard's Last Rhymes," is indeed the worst I've ever heard; slow, laborious to listen to and "framed" by a ridiculous text that turns out to be the fourth episode of the album: "Tears Of A Dying Angels," which, accompanied by a terrible musical base, moves on the same notes for six minutes, accompanying truly unappealing singing. The "recited" part is horrendous, intended to be theatrical, but is nothing but ridiculous. (rating 1) "Elnor's Magic Valley" is a pseudo-ballad purely instrumental, with a strong medieval flavor, which turns out to be totally out of place (rating 3); "The Poem's Evil Page" presents itself as a very tedious song, alternating almost intimate moments with others more "pushed," with a really poor final result, if not for Turilli's very good performance. (rating 5) The last track is nothing more than a faded copy of the most beautiful songs of the very first Rhapsody production, which offers only a beautiful bass solo in the middle part and the various solos of the skilled Luca. (rating 4-)

In conclusion, despite saving three tracks, the album leaks from all sides and not even a hyper-production and a good instrumental performance by all the band members can lift this record from total insufficiency.