Back in 2001 I came across this band’s debut Sanctus Ignis and I liked it a fair bit. My flirtation with all things power and symphonic in metal did not last too long though and I never went back to Adagio and their debut album. Then suddenly, a couple of days ago, I saw that the band had a new album out and for some unfathomable reason had to listen to it.

Adagio is the brainchild of French guitarist Stephan Forte and Archangels in Black is the bands fourth album so out there somewhere must be a market for this band. I can’t understand it. In fact I can’t understand anything about this album. Press releases say this is the album where the band has hit on the ultimate combination of melodic and extreme metal. I suppose the perfect example of this is on Fear Circus which basically has the main riff from Pantera’s Walk mixed up with keyboard melodies and some incredibly weak vocals. It is in fact a lot more embarrassing than it sounds. The rest of the album isn’t too far behind. The focus is on the cheese and with songs like Undead, The Fifth Ankh, Twilight at Dawn and album closer Getsu Senshu, Adagio threatens to start their own manufacturing plant.

I guess at a certain level, this band is made up of very talented musicians apart from the vocalist who sounds at times like Russ Allen and at other times like Stefan Berglund of Memory Garden but also sounds at all times like someone kicked him real hard in the nuts. It’s a terrible performance from the vocalist but then you can’t really blame the guy because Forte’s song writing skills are simply non-existent. There are loads of guitar solos all over this album and it’s the usual European widdly-widdly-wank-wank. I would have said that they are played to the detriment of the song but honestly these songs are beyond any help or saving. The riffs are weak and watered down, the grooves which happen only occasionally are downright embarrassing and the keyboard fills are just plain annoying.

I don’t see any redeeming feature in this music but at the same time I’m sure there are enough people who will love this. I loathe this album from the bottom of my heart and while Adagio might have a great future in the production, packaging and selling of cheese they really should leave the metal alone. This is the first big fat fail of 2009.

Year of Release - 2009

Label - Listenable Records