Forever Fight

Every now and again, an album comes out that tells a story that's actually worth listening to from beginning to end. Queensryche did this rather well with "Operation: Mindcrime" in 1988, Dio had "Magica" in 2000, and in 2009, White Skull did this with "Forever Fight". It's a retelling of the story of Boudica, an Iceni leader circa A.D. 61 whose village was attacked by the Romans.

The songs all connect in that regard, telling the story of Boudica as the songs traverse. Songs such as "Spy", "Forever Fight" and "Heavy Metal Axes" are fight songs, they make you feel like you're ready to take on the world, while songs like "Boudicca's Speech" and "A Mother's Revenge" show emotion and passion. The guitars and drums during the solos do a fantastic job of conveying this message, and they don't let up at all. The best example of this is "Feel My Rage", a song that tells of how Boudica's people were slaughtered by the Romans. The guitar escalates, then drops and you know that payback is coming, because the survivor is no longer afraid, now he's ready to kill. In addition, the distortion in "Escape" almost gives you a first-person perspective of the feeling of trying to flee from oppressive captors. All twelve of these songs send a strong message, and it truly runs the gamut of emotions that express everything, from rage to revenge and from fear to victory.

Anyone who thinks the songs don't stand out from each other should listen to the last song on the album "Beer, Cheers". The song is a victory song and a drinking song. It, literally is the "Piano Man" of the 21st Century and is one of the best songs on the album because of its rhythm and melody.

This is the first and only album with Elisa De Palma singing and White Skull went back to what made them good... female-led heavy metal with attitude. This is the kind of album you'd want to pick up the next time someone tells you that heavy metal is all a bunch of "angry white boys" to prove them dead wrong. The Italians don't always do power metal right but this time they nailed it.

White Skull is a band who have steadily improved since their roots. I found some of their early albums like Tales from the North to be quite bad, but the band had been writing better material after they replaced their original female vocalist with Gus Gabarrò. For their 8th full-length, Forever Fight they have parted with Gabarrò and replaced him with a new frontwoman in Elisa de Palma. While I'm not a big fan of the new vocals, she's at least a serious power metal singer and the band does not revert to the pompous and operatic fairy metal format. Elisa's got a nasally voice reminiscent of much German power metal (which means she fits in with White Skull quite nicely) like Gamma Ray or Mania.

Unfortunately I just couldn't get into the tracks here. They are performed well, with diverse tempos and a crisp and clear mix, but few feature the memorable riffing and chorus prominent in all the best power metal. The band tends to move at a medium pace which rarely gathers much force as it rolls down the mountain, when they pick up the speed the riffs tend to be glossed over in keyboards, which detract from the thrusting power of the guitars. The better songs here are those such as "Spy" where the guitars are really surrounding Elisa's vocals, but even this gets slathered in organ sounds. Some of the gang vocals are also pretty weak, for example in "Heavy Metal Ares" the backups just sound as if they'd been phoned in.

The band isn't just your average Rhapsody or Helloween clone, they sort of weave between these anthemic styles. Elisa's accent is a little thick and it does make some of the vocals feel sloppy, but those of you into the underground Italian power metal have since grown use to this. I can't give Forever Fight a huge recommendation: it's superior to their early work, but the band has it within them to create better albums than this (i.e. The Ring of the Ancients or the XIII Skull). Fans of female-fronted power metal might want to give it a spin.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com