Asgard

When people think of Italian power metal, images of soft and flowery landscapes likely come to mind, mostly due to the tendencies of the singers to be squeaky clean and on the higher end of the vocal spectrum. Likewise, often there will be a large amount of keyboards thrown into the mix to give the sound a bit more of a 70s pomp rock feel, something which often does not sit well with the traditional metal audience. In all of this, White Skull is an exception to the rule and plays a much more aggressive style of power metal, almost to the point of sounding like an early 80s thrash act. Vocalist Federica De Boni sounds heavily similar to Hansi Kursch when doing the rougher sounding stuff, and even when singing clean her register tends to be low and boyish, which works well for the sound of the style they play.

The opening track “Asgard” is fast and heavy, sounding almost like a hybrid of late 80s Blind Guardian and mid 80s Manowar. The guitar solo starts out with a cheesy cliché pedal point line that has been heard a bit too often, but afterwards evolves into a rather impressive technical display. “Hagen the Cruel” also has some mid-80s German speed metal elements to it, though the chorus is more in line with the richly harmonized variety that is common to newer power metal acts. The Stormwitch cover is pretty well done and we get a nice clean vocal delivery by Federica that contrasts from the gritty yell that she has employed up until now. The Andramelch cover is pretty similar sounding to their original work, more speed metal of the 80s persuasion with vocal attitude, hinting at one of their sources of inspiration.

This EP is not exactly the best thing I’ve heard out of power metal band, but it does have some decent ideas working for it that could be expanded upon a bit more. If you want a real good example of to properly worship Blind Guardian then I’d check out something by Persuader. White Skull’s “Asgard” would be best sought at a discount price at a reputable second hand CD vendor. They don’t really fit in the top tier of power metal bands even though they predate many of the bands that would fall into that category.