Van Canto – Voices Of Fire (2016)
You know, I have always liked to listen to unusual music. But Van Canto, perhaps, is one of my most extraordinary attachments. The band consists of one drummer and five vocalists. These guys are from the category of those bands about which one always ask “How do they do it ?!” Most likely, a lot of people know them by incredible covers for the songs of Nightwish, Sabaton, Metallica and Iron Maiden. But, actually, I liked their own songs always more than covers. And the sixth album is perhaps the most powerful of all that they released. It is epic from the first to the last note, rich and bright, it tells the heroic story about bards, dragons, battles and love. There are a lot of choirs on Voices of Fire, they give the songs a very atmospheric and symphonic sound.
The album opens with a deep song “Clashings on Armor Plates”, it seems to represents the whole album. The second track is a gloomy-disturbing song “Dragonwake”, followed by a rhythmic “Time and Time Again”, which for some reason strongly reminded me of “Steel Breaker” from the previous album of the band. The magical “Battleday’s Down” and calling “Firevows (Join the Journey)” are some of my favorite songs on “Voices of Fire”. But the absolute hit on this album is, of course, “The Bardcall”. A bright, lively melody with a combination of great drums and beautifully shot video – all this is very impressive. I’m sure this song I will listen to this song for a very long time. The album ends with a victorious-dramatic “To Catharsis”, on which the choir looks very advantageous. Choirs, of course, are in every song of “Voices of Fire”, but here they are in right place.
At the beginning and at the end of the album there are text tracks called “Prologue” and “Epilogue”. And after each song there is also a text part, complementing the history of the album. I want to note some advantages of “Voices of Fire”. First, the male lead vocals. Generally speaking, I think that Dennis is a very good vocalist, his voice is unusually flexible and varied, the list of covers that he performs prove that. But it seemed to me that he started to perform even better on this album. Secondly, the drums. There is nothing left to say. Bastian have done an outstanding job. And thirdly, the story itself that goes through the whole album. A book with the same title was written and published, it is telling about all the events that happened with the bard Aidan and Queen Helena. In general, it is real a magnificent album. I think Van Canto made a big step forward.