?Classics? of power metal #12: ANCIENT BARDS - The Alliance Of The Kings (2010), upon further review

There's a moment in "Farewell My Hero" in which everything changes.  What seemed to be one story becomes another, one much greater.  Using nothing but a change in tenses,* Daltor transforms from world's guiding light to martyr.  The way his drawn out death serves a springboard to let the others rise up, is one of those celebrations of the human spirit that you can only...

... okay, no; I cannot keep a proverbial straight face while typing that.  This is some silly-ass shit right here, and I am fundamentally incapable of getting into it.  Return to fucking Sendor**.  Of all the power metal records with deeply embarrassing lyrics, The Alliance Of The Kings is very much one of them.  

I don't bounce off all of them quite so hard, though.  It's worth asking what it is about Alliance that keeps me from meeting it halfway.  I mean, this is a series of rambles about power metal, a subgenre in which embrace of goofy fantasy stories is generally more feature than bug.  The actual name of the band is Ancient Bards, FFS.  So of course there's going to be some fantasy storytelling afoot here.  Why can't I put my feet up next to the fire and just listen to the Bards' tale?

The answer isn't surprising at all.  As much as we like interesting lyrics, most of us don't listen to metal for the lyrics.  Especially if the words being sung don't themselves provide any sort of emotional hook, it's all up to the music to bring whatever they're singing about to life.  And trust me, if I were more engaged with the music on display here, I'd spend way less time picking apart second-language song lyrics.  There's not a song on this whole album that totally works for me.  In aggregate, I probably don't find any given minute of Alliance to be very interesting.   Instrumental parts are often just a few notes or the simplest of scales.  I'm really struggling to come up with any rhyme or reason for why a guitar solo belongs to song A instead of song B - they all pretty much sound identical.  Martino Grattoni (on bass) at least livens things up, but pick any segment and you'll find without fail that Allesandro Carichini (the drummer) is playing the same thing over and over.  The Bards at least try to throw in a whimsical melody line here and there with the "folk" side of the instrumentation, but that generally fails to land for me too.***  The other main way that Alliance uses the keyboards is to create the kind of cinematic background noise that's "cinematic" in the sense that it'd be a good fit for a movie score to accompany something actually happening on screen, because there sure as hell isn't anything happening with the music.  Okay, let's see what's next... oh, Jesus Christ, here's yet another passage with the guitars aimlessly running up and down the scales...

What's actually interesting is how hard it was to pick a least favorite track for the closing comments.  They're all mixed bags.  Every song does have at least two elements in it that I like.  I'm almost impressed at how aggressively Alliance commits to squandering**** its potential.  For instance, "The Birth Of Evil" has a rather cool idea with the chorus in which the tempo changes and Sara goes up in pitch (apparently she's playing multiple characters here, but how the listener would know that is beyond me) to repeat the motif.  That motif itself isn't very strong, though, and it ends with "it is the birth of evil!" in a way that doesn't scan with the rhythm at all.  Shame.  I still do love the interplay between the restless guitars and the other instruments on the main riff of "Only The Brave," especially coming out of the final chorus... enough to make me really wish the rest of the song, other than the bass solo, stood out in any way. 

Sketching out general trends, I think on the whole Ancient Bards' verse game is stronger than their chorus game, at least on this record.  A good minor chord can do a lot, so "Frozen Mind" is a highlight.  Establish the chord with guitar, punctuate it with a few well placed keyboard notes, having your singer go up and down in a similar pattern to what the instruments are doing... well, here it works.  (Of course they pair it with an absolutely bog-standard boring-ass metal chorus, and a generic guitar solo that could easily have slotted into any other song on the record - seriously, excise the guitar solo and jump straight to the piano solo, and the song would hold together way better.)  Anyway, that's the most common pattern here for me - promising verse, lackluster song en toto, lack of editing.  A few change up the formula, like "Daltor The Dragonhunter" that tries running a line through the song and tossing it amongst the instruments.  Too bad one cool motif doesn't make a song, and too bad the swelling of voices that're supposed to be the song's triumphant climax are a dissonant cacophony.  I feel like I'm pulling an Alliance Of The Kings here and repeating the same thing in different ways.  The reason is that that's Alliance in a nutshell to me; a step forward, two steps kinda diagonally backward, over and over.  I'll credit "Farewell My Hero" for coming the closest to what I want out of a metal story-song - the main riff does feel rousing, the vocals convey longing and chaos on the verse ("the wind is rocking the trees...").

I almost want to feel bad for Daniele here.  He has this idea, assembles a band that seems to have the musical chops and a singer who has the pipes to bring his vision to life, only to find that his songwriting just isn't potent enough to live up to the grandeur that's in his head.  Not all that sympathetic, though, just because obviously The Alliance Of The Kings did find its audience; Ancient Bards are doing pretty well for themselves, for a power metal band.  I personally wish they'd focused less on this Black Crystal Sword thing and more on writing tighter songs first and foremost.  Hey, some of that's just me.  

 

I should acknowledge one last time that this particular flavor of medieval-styled EUPM isn't generally my thing, so my tastes had me a little predisposed against enjoying the record the way maybe a Rhapsody fan might.  But even if this is not my personal favorite style, I've definitely heard this sort of thing done in a way that does work for me.*****  This ain't it.

Favorite track:  "Farewell My Hero"

Runner up:  "Frozen Mind"

Least favorite track:  "Faithful To Destiny"

Rating:  1.5/5

Things I learned about power metal

- I haven't gotten over my inherent gag reflex to overwrought fantasy lyrics, just sublimated it in the name of enjoying (some) metal.

- Nothing makes one appreciate the pioneers - Rhapsody, in this case - like hearing a later successor do something in the same vein, but worse.

Will I come back to Ancient Bards?

No.

Next:  Initial thoughts on Judicator's At The Expense Of Humanity, whenever I get around to it!

*because nothing about the rest of the song changes at all to signal that anything's different than any other song

**Sorry-not-sorry about that one.  I had to work it in somewhere.

**One major exception would the bridge in "Loda Al Padre."  I actually quite like the jaunty keyboard line here, and I rather like the Italian part too.  Naturally, that occurs in the middle of the song whose chorus is repetitious to the point of quickly becoming annoying, because we're not allowed to have nice things.  

****Squadrani-ing?

*****The band comparison that came to me today:  If one cobbled together the good parts of Alliance, one could totally see that being like a quarter of a solid Frozen Crown record.  Stick with writing songs and good things happen.