January 2023 Feature Release - The Guardians Edition
2023 is already here, but 2022 was an awesome year for Guardians releases. Most people have heard the newest Blind Guardian, but it doesn't look like people have checked out the album that gave it a run for its money in my 2022 ranking, The Saberlight Chronicles. Fellowship aren't going to be for everyone since they are relentlessly upbeat and happy, but I had a blast with this album last year and I'm glad to have the opportunity to get it a bit more exposure.
Fellowship aren't going to be for everyone since they are relentlessly upbeat and happy
Hhhmmmm..... sounds pretty scary but I'll give it a fair crack nonetheless.
Well, you aren't wrong with your assessment of this one Xephyr & I'm not going to be offering any surprises with my own feelings as a result. The whole album feels like it's got a thick layer of Vaseline over the top of it with the band taking an unapologetically bubblegum approach to their power metal & hinting at Christmas carol cheese with great regularity. The soft production job & super-precise performances have had any hint of an edge sanded off with everything sounding so perfect that it's hard to find anything that resembles aggression outside of the driving double-kick work. The symphonics are ultra-smooth & sit quite high in the mix to ensure that the rhythm guitars don't try anything funny by heading into heavier territories while the neoclassical guitar solos sound like every other Yngwie Malmsteen wannabe you've ever heard & leave me feeling pretty bored despite the obvious technical talents on display. Vocalist Matthew Corry possesses the sort of pipes where you can easily imagine his throat to be positively oozing with honey but he stays well within himself at all times & never makes any attempt to belt out the higher registers which again makes "The Saberlight Chronicles" a very easy-listening metal release indeed. But it's also a very generic one in my opinion. Any fan of European power metal will have heard this super-melodic symphonically-driven stuff a thousand times before from bands like Rhapsody & Dragonforce while Fellowship's hints at a more progressive & sophisticated Kamelot style approach never really get going for long enough to make an impression. Look... there was never any question of this album being something I'd enjoy & I really struggle to differentiate between the good & the bad in this subgenre given that both generally leave me feeling alienated. I did enjoy "The Hours of Wintertime" though which is an example of European power metal done well.
2.5/5
The RYM tags for this are Power Metal, Symphonic Metal and Neoclassical Metal which, when chanted together, sounds like a shamanic curse against me personally, so Fellowship and me are off to a bad start. I have my boiling vats of bile and venom ready to pour onto the efforts of these upstart southerners, so let's get to it. Well, er... actually I didn't really mind it that much. It isn't exactly my cup of tea, but I have certainly heard plenty of other power metal that has offended my ears far more than this. It's faintly ridiculous, but I really can't bring myself to hate it (and I fully expected to). It is overblown, but more in a Queen-like way than a Dragonforce one, which makes it less irritating as it doesn't seem as earnest and po-faced, which is instant death for a genre as ridiculous as power metal can be. Another reason for my lack of vitriol aimed it's way is the vocals - the guy just doesn't piss me off with OTT vocal histrionics and is far more bearable than the vast majority of European PM singers I have heard. Don't get me wrong - I will, in all likelihood, never, ever play this album again, but it was kind of... OK. [shrug] so shoot me!
3/5
There are times when I'm listening to heavy metal music (and as I have become older, those times have grown a lot closer) when I just need a break. All of the aggression and ruthlessness can become overwhelming and sometimes I wonder "are you guys actually having fun making music?" Well allow me to introduce to you to Fellowship, the newest power metal outlet making some of the cheeriest metal music of the 2020s.
My first impression of The Saberlight Chronicles was reserved as my first comparison point was Majestica and their 2020 Christmas album. And while I did enjoy Majestica a few years ago, something about this does not click the same way. Perhaps it was the promise of being uplifting, but then falling into a very comfortable, Rhapsody (of Fire) formula of songwriting, but perhaps without the indulgent guitar solo dominance. I find it to be adequate, but far from impressive, especially considering Blind Guardian and Avantasia have been able to push the power metal genre forward beyond over-the-top expansiveness.
At least the instrumentals are well performed. Unlike a record such as Pain Remains by Lorna Shore, the symphonic elements are clearly meant as supplements to the choruses. These backgrounds are well produced and compliment the leads well, instead of resorting to the Fleshgod Apocalypse approach of "MORE LOUD NOISES!" As for the compositions, songs like "The Saint Beyond the River", "Silhouette" and "Until the Fires Die" are likely to be complimentary mainstays in my metal playlists. The rest of it just flies over my head as sounding the same. The final two tracks "Still Enough" and "Avalon" are so basic and forgettable even after extending their runtime well beyond what was reasonable.
Perhaps Fellowship's brand of power metal is still in its baby steps and The Saberlight Chronicles is the band just getting their feet wet. Maybe the next album will sound completely different and Fellowship will set themselves apart from even the best that power metal has to offer at the moment. But for now, I thought The Saberlight Chronicles was satisfactory. There are touches of something greater, but too quickly resorts back to tired-and-true power metal formulas of Rhapsody and Nightwish.
6/10