Legends

Crystal Viper are such a cool band, I really admire them and their work as well as their treat of a vocalist Marta Gabriel. As far as I'm concerned Legends is probably her best vocal performance to date, she's really on the money this time around.

In comparison to their previous output I've got to say that Legends is their most pristine sounding release, and the production is a lot clearer and brighter than the last two. The riffs are excellent as per usual, catchy and very Running Wild. The rhythm section is spot on, quality sticks work courtesy of "Golem" (Tomasz Danczak) which serves as the perfect backbone, and Tom Woryna's bass is kept in the mix right where it belongs. Returning to the guitars, Andy Wave has done a cracking job, as mentioned before the riffs are great and catchy, the solos again are spot on, and the melodies are perfectly catchy and hooky and have kept me going back to this.

Track-wise, the album kicks off with a short narrated piece which I'm indifferent to, I could have done without but it doesn't detract at all. What follows is a tour de force in heavy metal brilliance with three winners straight off the bat, "The Ghost Ship" and "Blood of the Heroes" are straight out of Running Wild although never verge on outright plagiarism, with both boasting wickedly catch choruses. I should mention that it does take a few spins for the hooks to bury their way into your flesh, I took me around four or five spins to register everything but now I wander around the house singing the songs and humming the melodies. "Greed Is Blind" seems to be the lead off track, having a music video made for it, excellent track again with some real nice melodies.

I could really go on about stand out tracks. I'd say the weakest offering is probably "Sydonia Bork", though it's still a pretty catchy ballad. After an ever so slight down point Crystal Viper return to the awesomeness of the opening three belters, with the quality remaining high up until their cover of Accept's "TV War". With personal highlights in the catchy "Night of the Sin" and the awesome "Black Leviathan" with its Maiden style intro, I could really go on but I would imagine you've got the picture by now: this rules.

I've been pleasantly surprised by this album, and I've got to say its one of my favorites of 2010. With the only slight niggles being the ballad, which only really niggles because I felt it was placed too soon into the album, and also as previously mentioned this took a little while to click, so those with a short attention span could be thrown. Overall if you're a fan of Crystal Viper then this is a no-brainer you won't be disappointed. Fans of good old fashioned heavy metal, this album is a boat load of fun and certainly worthy of your attention. Highly Recommended.

Originally written for http://www.metalcrypt.com

Polish heavy metal upstarts Crystal Viper are back again with the follow up to their critically acclaimed 2009 release Metal Nation, and this time continue their crusade for everything true and heavy with the subtly titled Legends. The debut, The Curse of Crystal Viper was unashamedly retro, the nonchalant old school vibe was what attracted me to it in the first place, with Metal Nation they somewhat lost some of that appeal to these ears, although it was still certainly an entertaining listen nevertheless. What I've always admired about Crystal Viper is that they avoid exploiting the fact they have a female vocalist, thus they avoid all the pitfalls and pigeon-holing that snare so many other bands. It's not very common in metal in general, never mind power/heavy metal, and when you do come across it it's usually some faux romantic gothic tripe, but Marta Gabriel's vocals are firmly rooted in the orthodox heavy metal style, of which many budding female metal singers should take note.

Crystal Viper wear their influences on their sleeve. A short delve into their recorded history will tell you that, covers from bands such as Running Wild, Accept, W.A.S.P. and Agent Steel will tell you all you really need to know about their sound. If I had to put a slightly more accurate description on things, a reasonable combination of American legends Omen and German privateer's Running Wild with the attitude of W.A.S.P. I'd say is accurate enough. If the thought of that doesn't get your metal sense tingling then I believe the low level lighting should guide you safely enough to the nearest exit in the hall. Legends is in pretty much the same boat as Metal Nation, a great piece of heavy metal, but this time it seems that there is something not quite right, lacking a certain staying power or that final clinical veneer that made the début so great.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's bad, not by any means. This is Crystal Viper as I've always loved them, but where the band was able to run riot on the début, I can't help but notice they sound a little restrained here. First and foremost the album appears to lack any anthems such as as 'Metal Nation' or 'The Last Axeman', although I'd say the album is a lot less 'impact' and a bit more of a 'grower'. Opener 'The Ghost Ship' is one of the stronger tracks on the album, the guitar riffing could easily have been lifted off Death or Glory, it's quite literally that obvious. It even sounds 'piratey' for want of a better word. The chorus is almost what you've come to expect with Crystal Viper, catchy and flamboyant, and with a guitar solo thrown in for good measure. But it's this predictability which is Legends downfall as well. It's all too easy to tread the same beaten paths over and over again. Every song follows the same verse-chrous-verse structure. “Sure they've always done this?” Well yes, but whereas the first time around they sounded genuinely inspired and fresh, it now just sounds tired and slightly tedious. This is most noticeable in the choruses throughout the album, just as it threatens to reach it's pinnacle, it hits a glass ceiling and doesn't really go anywhere before falling back again. The musicianship is top notch, as always, the guitar riffing is tight, though slightly more melodic than before almost verging into power metal territory as is the drumming, but it sounds as if there's something restraining Marta, holding her back from shifting into top gear. All songs follow the same pattern pretty much, except the ballad 'Sydonia Bork' where Marta actually sounds very like Kimberly Goss only with an accent. This song shows Marta's vocal talents best, at her most prominent and powerful. The band still maintain all the pomp and extravagance from before, most evident on the closing two tracks 'Black Leviathan' with it's Running Wild-esque swagger and the lead littered 'A Man of Stone', but the majority of the album just never quite reaches the dizzy heights they are capable of.

This viper may have had some of it's venom removed, but it's still just as vicious regardless. All the main attributes of Crystal Viper are still there, the melodic yet ripping guitar work, Marta's unmistakable vocals, galloping bass and drums. If you've already a fan of Crystal Viper and power/heavy metal in general you should get this, just don't expect anything quite as immediate as before. Since first listening to this my opinion has improved considerably, but I still think they need to come up with some new ideas, as the current formula is starting to sound exhausted and stagnant. It may be a little tame this time round, but they're still showing the wannabe Nightwish's and Epica's how metal is supposed to be done.

It's rare enough to hear a female fronted power metal act that doesn't lag into fairy/Gothic metal posturing worthy of a Stephanie Meyer convention, much less one that is actually flat out good, so Crystal Viper continues their stint as a welcome anomaly in the genre. To boot, the band's Polish origins and Leather Wych's rather acidic pitch give it a distinct and tasteful European flair that conjures up nostalgia for German speed metal greats like Scanner, Mania, Reactor, and early Rage, a sound that is all too rarely represented against the more flowery sounds emanating from Scandinavia or the robust, driving anthems of your Gamma Rays, Rhapsodies of Fire or DragonForces, but there's plenty of enormous melody here to appeal to fans in any of these areas.

Legends is the third full-length, following up the promising, borderline potency of their 2009 effort Metal Nation, and it carves out an intro and 10 themes of galloping melodic fare that seem almost a bit reserved when compared to the earlier material, or at least polished. The guitars are knuckle dusters of surging power recalling Running Wild or Rage, while the leads bring out the fast flurries of anthem force pioneered through Helloween, and Gamma Ray. High above all but the solos, Leather Wych cuts a captivating, crystalline entity whose voice is barely chinked other than the accent, which only adds character. Sadly, the album does suffer from a slight case of predictability: as soon as a chorus begins, you're almost assured of where it's going.

This safety net could hardly be called a plague upon the writing, but it does lessen the impact of the vaulting "Blood of the Heroes" or "Night of the Sin", for example. Thankfully, though most of the tracks here charge along at the same relative, explosive pace, there is enough deviation to perk the listener's interest, especially when one has such a huge soft spot for the German style this resurrects. "A Man of Stone" functions as a worthwhile, finer sex version of something that might have appeared on Keeper of the Seven Keys I and II, while "Black Leviathan" conjures up some tasteful phantoms of Maiden and Running Wild. The piano laden ballad "Sydonia Bork" doesn't quite live up to its potential, but "Secret of the Black Water" rocks out fiercely, like a more venomous tinged alternative to classic Zed Yago/Crystal Viper.

Legends is likely to breed a lot of excitement among Euro power metal fans, and with good reason, because it's been far too long in a band like this coming around. I enjoyed the fantastic or supernatural subject matter of the songs, and the clean gloss of the mix. Unfortunately, the material here, while strong, is not exactly about to become parasitic within the listener's mind, because it's simply been done before, and better. The cover of Accept's "TV War" is tasteful and a few of the songs like "Black Leviathan" and "A Man of Stone" should be counted among the better of this style in recent memory, but it's only a marginally superior effort than Metal Nation.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com