AQUILLA – Sentinels of New Dawn

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7.0

• Bands:
  AQUILA
• Duration: 00:49:42
• Available from: 10/31/2025
• Label:

• High Roller Records

Streaming not yet available

Ten years after their formation, Aquilla return with a new album. The second chapter of their discography comes out on High Roller Records, which is a great achievement, being one of the flagship labels of classic metal for a long time now.
The band's sound turns out to be more than convincing from the first listens: a very robust heavy metal with a 'modern' sound (but not in the sense of new school, clearly), which often indulges in almost power digressions (see the fast tempos that can recall the first Helloween or Gamma Ray) and with science fiction themes.
In fact, the musicians claim to be very linked to films like “Blade Runner”, “Interstellar” or “2001: A Space Odyssey” and in fact the imagery, as the cover also suggests, seems to be that: on a musical level, however, we notice little that brings to mind that type of scenario, other than a few sporadic moments (see the initial acoustic part of “The Prophet”, with that background wind that brings to mind the first scenes of the first film we mentioned, directed by Ridley Scott).

However, don't expect a work similar to that of Iron Maiden for “Somewhere in Time”: the synth parts are very few (with the exception of the instrumental “Sentinel's Fate”) and even from the point of view of the guitars that is not the main reference; instead they seem to be a concentration of more recent heavy metal (Enforcer, Skull Fist), with a voice that is very reminiscent of that of Klaus Meine of Scorpions.
In the first part of the album our band prefers to push the accelerator a lot and also have a good mastery of songwriting (see “Plunder And Steel” and “Creed Of Fire”) but it is in the slower moments that our bands give their best (“Bound to Be King” or the aforementioned “The Prophet”).

This “Sentinels of New Dawn” turns out to be a very well-written album, with effective choruses and production in step with the times, but it has a significant flaw: forty-nine minutes for an album of this genre are too many. We advise the Polish band, for their next work, to limit themselves to half an hour or at most forty minutes, to ensure that their ideas are best appreciated without too much delay.
If you are a fan of these sounds you might find Aquilla a very interesting band, but if you prefer an even more old-school sound you would be better off looking elsewhere.