review by: Jez Andrews

To hell with convention, a 42-minute CD is not what I'd call a 'mini-album.' Okay, now that I've got that off my chest, down to business.

Rhapsody have done it again. The Italian power metal giants have produced a truly awesome cocktail of atmosphere, exquisite beauty, and firey, theatrical metal at its best. In fact, remove the frankly embarrassing "Tears of a Dying Angel," and it's just perfection from start to finish. Both opener "Rain of a Thousand Flames" and the utterly incredible "Queen of the Dark Horizons" will have the hair flying in all directions, and more than a few air guitars, I'll warrant. Alex Holzwarth's drumming is a display of excellence the like of which is rarely to be seen this side of extreme metal, and Luca Turilli naturally pulls out all the stops with the superb lead guitar tracks and song arrangements (with the help of keyboard player Alex Staropoli). The production is simply gorgeous, and at last, the thundering double bass drum blasts, though still very effective on the past three albums, are now given the presence they richly deserve.

"Elnor's Magic Valley" is a short, folky instrumental that just makes you want to break out a barrel of wine and perform a celebratory jig. The whole thing is just such a wonderful listen, that one can only imagine the fresh magnificence will be unleashed with the new album, later this month.

Makes you proud to be a metaller, it really does. This I would call an essential release, so get your hands on a copy, before I lose my temper! And as for the individuals responsible for this gem, get yourselves over to merry old England, if only for one show.

review by: Roberto Martinelli

Even I'm into this record, and I don't even like Rhapsody. Finally, this band has made an album with a production befitting a metal record. Before, like on Dawn of Victory the sound was too manicured, kind of like the whole thing was mixed on a Macintosh computer, but now it's great. What's also great is how there are so many different types of songs on here, and they all are cool. One song is totally obnoxious but awesome power metal, and another song isn't metal or obnoxious at all. There's even a prog sounding song. What's not so great, however, is how Rhapsody persists in using that awful, awful guy to do their "metal" narrations. You know, the guy from Dawn of Victory: "At the c-c-c-c-c-c-ourt of k-k-k-ing c-c-c-c-haos..." ARGH! He sounds like a profoundly constipated, wussy non-native English speaker with a cold. It was so lame before. Now, it's just like that, except his monologue goes on for minutes!!! Someone get a clue!