Friday, February 15, 2013

TRICK OR TREAT: "Rabbit's Hill Part 1"

Rating: RRRR
Label: Valery Records 2012
Review by Alan Holloway
From small acorns do mighty oaks grow, and so it is here, with what started out as a Helloween tribute band morphing into a fully fledged melodic metal band in their own right. Not only that, but they’ve only gone and released a concept album based around the classic novel about rabbits, “Watership Down”. Okay, not the most metal of concepts (unless you kill all the rabbits with an axe or something) but bugger me if it doesn’t work.
Fusing melodic power metal with atmospheric acoustic pieces and spoken word to help the story is not an easy task, but Trick Or Treat do a sterling job, although it probably helps if you are a fan of the source material, like I am. Vocalist Allessandro Conti certainly shows why he was deemed capable of singing classic Helloween songs, and to be honest that should tell you all you need to know about his excellent voice. The rest of the band thunder along happily, with some cool traditional power metal drumming banging away like a rabbit with it’s tail on fire at the back, courtesy of Luca Setti. The album ends with a metal cover of the classic track “Bright Eyes”, made famous by Art Garfunkel, and to give the boys credit it’s a good version that resists the temptation to go too overboard on the metal when they don’t have to.
“Rabbit’s Hill Part 1” is, above all else, a strong power/melodic metal album, with the fact that it successfully incorporates a literary concept a bonus. The booklet is very well put together with some great art, but for some reason no one is credited for it. It helps to sell the whole concept very well though. Part 2? Yes please.
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