DRAGONFORCE: The Power Within (MELODIC METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

It took Dragonforce more than four years to follow up on "Ultra Beatdown". Meanwhile, the band had to undergo the departure of its singer, ZP Theart, in March 2010 due officially to musical misunderstandings and took a year to find his successor. His replacement is Marc Hudson who happens to be a complete stranger. How will Dragonforce, which seemed at the end of its rope with a very weak "Ultra Beatdown" associated with this long penalizing absence, manage this year?

Let's be honest, "The Power Within" is a much better quality suite than its predecessor. The band always plays a melodic speed that is quite appropriate but it finds colours and a certain dynamic. The first positive evolution comes from the tempi which finally slow down from time to time. "Cry Thunder", "Seasons" or "Holding On" are good tracks, not too fast, melodic, that put the singer at the heart of the song in the mind of a Hammerfall. We find there good choruses, fast guitars of course but without exaggeration as well as the keyboard which avoids being too frenetic. There is even a longer and more elaborate track, "Wings Of Liberty", starting like a ballad before accelerating. Finally, with "Die By The Sword", "Give Me The Night" and "Last Man Stands", Dragonforce releases classic heavy speed tracks worthy of what was done in the 90s with Gamma Ray or Edguy; nothing very original but the whole thing goes well thanks to a Hudson very comfortable and powerful in the genre.

Unfortunately, Dragonforce has not lost all its bad habits. "Fallen World" and especially "Heart Of The Storm" thus offer ultra-fast content and drown the listener in a deluge of inconsistent notes. If Hudson remains at ease vocally to accompany this surge, this technical overbid clearly does not serve Dragonforce, which is self-parodying here to the extreme.

Dragonforce thus signs an honest record, more worked and interesting but which does not go beyond the framework of the second division of melodic speed. "The Power Within" should still delight fans of the genre and those of the band since it contains the ingredients that made it so successful. But will that be enough? - Official website

DRAGONFORCE

THE POWER WITHIN

WARNER

MELODIC METAL