Legend

Great, more Euro power metal. To be fair, these guys were relatively early to the party, putting this thing out back in 1998. Regardless of release date, though, all power metal CDs really belong to a collective whole, establishing the necessity of being very good if you’re to gain any sort of acceptance in the field. So, are Spanish-based Twilight any good? Take all the “factors” into account, and then guess. Chances are you’ll be right.

Twilight came over in the same rat-infested boat as fellow countrymen Sorcery along with countless other marginal acts. In fact, Twilight and Sorcery are largely just about the same band – both with names and debut album titles that make it ridiculously hard to find any sort of information on them (good luck trying twilight+legend on Google), both being very early Arise Records releases – coincidentally, the label wiping out all mention of their existence on its website – and, unsurprisingly, both failing to make even the smallest of splashes in the genre.

Instrumentally, things are okay here – individual talent isn’t really the issue. That being said, the band succeeded in composing nine jaw-droppingly average songs. All of them sound quite alike, with nothing standing out, good or bad. Every song features a middle break replete with solos and sometimes half-decent melodies, all serving to glue together uninteresting bits. I do wish the band would decide more firmly on speed – most of the verses gallop along at an uncomfortable pace that falls somewhere between “slow gallop” and “brisk”. Hard to describe, but easy to detect – the band always seems to want to crank things up yet comes across as too hesitant. If you’ve heard a few mediocre power metal releases – Italy provides many good examples – then you’ve heard this. Melodic guitar work, double bass, high-treble sound, fantasy lyrics penned in some sort of alternate-universe version of English, and so on.

There’s one enormous problem, however: the singer. I’ve now decided that in all my years of listening to metal I have yet to hear a vocalist this devoid of emotion and lacking in range. Completely agonizing to listen to, Jose Antonio provides the sort of morbidly hilarious vocals that can provide hours of entertainment for children and adults alike. Until you realize, that is, you paid money for this, upon which you’ll likely resort to cursing and perhaps a little sobbing as you realize that yes, the joke truly is on you. Wondering what he sounds like? Imagine your nerdy thirteen-year-old cousin pinching his nose shut while reciting the lines to some corny kid’s cartoon. Better yet, don’t.

Honestly, with vocals as bad as these there’s little point in continuing. Anything good I can possibly say (well, not much, really) matters little in the long run. Antonio’s performance here serves one good purpose, that being as a reminder to all fledgling singers out there that, no matter how badly you suck, there’s a chance you can still make money off your “skill”. Actually, maybe that’s not such a good thing. In any case, Twilight came back five years later with a new singer and actually managed to release a decent, if still formulaic, sophomore effort. Just stay away from the debut.