CELESTY

CELESTY present their third album, so let's see -- or rather hear -- what this epic power metal band has prepared for us, a group that doesn't orient itself toward the well-known giants of the Finnish power metal scene. We're presented with yet another fantasy narrative, and it's trivial to the extreme, especially since the plot is always the same: power metallers write about a warrior of light battling darkness, with the forces of evil ultimately meeting their end. Nearby, you'll find gentlemen from a good dozen symphonic black metal projects with the exact same premise, except the warrior of light naturally loses to darkness. In the end, everyone's happy and the lack of imagination is seemingly compensated. There's just one hitch -- what are both camps supposed to do about the lack of musical imagination? CELESTY handled the task reasonably well: at the very least, the album doesn't cause irritation. Beyond that, all the material feels exceedingly derivative, yet you can quite easily endure the 45 minutes. The music doesn't sink deep into your soul, but it doesn't grate either. The main weakness is the vocals -- they're too soft. In places they shift to a rougher delivery, and if the entire album were done in that spirit, the overall impression might have been better. As it stands, it's a decent effort: non-aggressive, unpretentious yet epic, quite melodic and not at all heavy power metal. I would certainly recommend it to fans of this kind of music.