Legends Never Die is the third release of Graal, a classical progressive hard rock band from Italy. The band consist of Andrea Ciccomartino (vocals, guitars), Francesco Zagarese (guitars), Danilo Petrelli (keyboards), Michele Raspanti (bass) and Alex Giuliani (drums). In general you'll find good music on this album. For me, none of the twelve songs is disappointing nor in a musical, nor in a textual way. Opening piece is the acoustic guitar instrumental Il Ballo Di Caterina followed by the heavy rock song Gods Of War in the vein of Deep Purple. Maybe Tomorrow, Maybe One Day contains several nice organ solos in the vein of Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep). Keep On Movin' sounds like an excellent copy of Deep Purple including the legendary guitar solos by Ritchie Blackmore and the organ solos by Jon Lord. Think for instance, of a song like Space Truckin'. After these two heavy songs it's time to slow down a bit with the folk song Across The Land sounding like ' Jethro Tull meets Blackmore's Night'. The Sky Over Dublin is an interesting piece as well and quite similar to a bluesy instrumental song. In the next piece I'll Find A Way the influences of Whitesnake are easy to determine. This song once more contains nice heavy riffs and excellent guitar and keyboard solos. The Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy is never far away in Time To Die and the pump rocker Ocean's Tides is reminiscent of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. This piece is my personal favourite of the album by the way. Stay is the only ballad starting as a Black Sabbath- song, but soon you can enjoy several duels between the keyboards and the lead guitar. Final piece is Winter Song, which has a fine blend of a coustic guitar strumming and some folk rock elements. Don't expect new points of view on this album as far as the music is concerned. On the contrary, all songs are more or less a tribute to the classical hard rock bands of the seventies. Other references are Grand Funk Railroad, The Free, Bad Company and Led Zeppelin. Graal knows their classics. ***+ Cor Smeets (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
