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The first Metal CDs I ordered for myself some years ago were chosen more or less randomly from catalog descriptions. With Symphony X - Twilight in Olympus and the self titled Black Symphony debut album, that must be one of the best blind buys of all time!
Black Symphony is basically Progressive Metal, but with a lot of power and athmosphere and almost no instrumental show-off at all. That doesn’t mean these guys can’t play - some of them toured with Michael Schenker off late.
Their debut album is a classic in my book - the overall athmospheric and emotional density without losing heaviness is incredible - and so hard to describe. You should pick up the album - make sure get the limited edition that sponsors a very cool black CD case!
Their second album, Tears of Blood, is a tiny tiny bit weaker, but still an incredible album. The overall feeling that connects all songs of the first album is missing, the songs have become somewhat lighter and maybe a bit more modern. Still, every song is a winner on this album, the band plays great, the singer (I think they had a new one) is great and powerful. Also, the limited edition had a bonus CD with some really good cover versions.
Overall, a band you should at least listen too if you like any kind of Metal!
I just listened to some excerpts from their upcoming album on their MySpace page. The layout of MySpace pages is simply disastrous, and the whole social system laughable, but the good thing is that almost every band has their own page and you can ignore the rest and just look at the small player in the upper right corner. But I don’t recommend the new songs there, they sound much different from the first two albums, more like they try mixing in new styles and lose some of their original feeling…I will still buy the CD, it’s not that bad, but I repeat, do listen to their first two albums, not what is on their page alone! They also have a real band homepage but it’s very old and doesn’t contain much!