Style: Symphonic power metal
Primary Emotions/Themes: Live performance, dark fantasy, historical figures
Thoughts: To this point I've only talked about albums with Tommy as Kamelot's vocalist. It's time to talk about the Khan era of the band.
Roy Khan is the secret ingredient that took Kamelot from being another power metal band to one of the best bands in metal. His voice, his performances, his enunciation, his emotion, everything about Khan is elite.
At first the music had a hard time keeping up with him. Siege Perilous and The Fourth Legacy are excellent vocally but the music was not as compelling. It wasn't until Karma released that the band tapped into their full potential. That album not only set the bar for the band, but for power metal as a whole. It's easily one of the best albums in all of metal, one that the band wouldn't be able to match again (though the Black Halo comes close).
I don't have Karma on vinyl, I don't have Black Halo on vinyl. What I do have is One Cold Winter's Night, the live album that captures the finest songs off of both of those albums in a live setting. There are other songs on here as well, but the main draw are the songs off of those two albums.
The band starts the set off strong with The Black Halo and Soul Society. Soul Society in particular is an incredible song, it demonstrates how you properly do power metal. Even though it contains every single stereotype of the genre, the song is elevated to an new stratosphere due to how the way it's constructed. Instead of lifeless guitars providing a backing for the keyboards to carry the melody, they play an active role in the songs dynamics. The melody will consistently swing between the two instruments and they will often engage in a call/response style of song writing throughout the song. Instead of the drummer constantly pounding the double bass there is variance in the drumming. Of course the double bass barrage is used throughout the song but it's used as more of an exclamation point rather than the whole backing of the song.
This attention to detail continues throughout not only Soul Society but the entire set. Even songs that I don't care for too much on their respective records (Center of the Universe comes to mind), are done so well here that it's hard to ignore them.
One Cold Winter's Night is an album that I almost passed on when it first came out. I'm usually not a huge fan of live albums, preferring to see the bands in concert myself rather than watching a video or listen to a record of a live performance. In this case though, I'll never be able to see Kamelot of with Khan again, so I have to pull this record out if I want that experience - even if it is not as good as the real thing.
Napalm has been working on getting Kamelot's back catalog on vinyl. I'm hoping that if this continues, the next set of records will include those incredibly coveted treasures known as Karma and the Black Halo. If they never happen though, One Cold Winter's Night is a damn fine substitution.
Written January 10th 2024
No comments:
Post a Comment