vote
6.5
- Band:
Black Majesty - Duration: 00:58:48
- Available since: 06/06/2025
- Label:
-
Scarlet Records
Spotify not yet available
If we could give a hypothetical 'perseverance prize', the Australians Black Majesty would surely be in the run to get it coming to the top of an unlikely ranking. The Australian band led by the stainless John Knight on the microphone and Hanny Mohammed on guitar has never stopped, during these twenty years of career, to try to carve out her place in the international power metal scene, while proposing a formula that has always been close to the well -known epigones of the old continent as a Ray range, Rhapsody of Fire and so on.
“Oceans of Black”, however, does not only score the eighth stage in the studio for the band, but also the transition to Scarlet Records after so many years with the Pride & Joy Records, as well as the end of the historic collaboration with Roland Grapow for the production of the disc – this time entrusted to Ricardo Borges, usually behind the mixer of more extreme works such as those of Ihsahn or of the local Gory Blister.
It follows that this work is slightly darker, but also more finished: the initial brace, made up of “Dragon Lord” and “Set Stone of Fire”, immediately takes us to a fairy world full of intrigues in full style “The throne of swords”, while the more you go on you get closer to the Helloween with songs like “Raven”, where the ideas on the choirs find their interesting completeness.
Of course, the double case of some episodes (such as “Lucifer”) risks after a while to bore, and in general the disc is not always fresh or completely on fire, but, all in all, we are faced with a more than dignified job, with some episodes, such as the title-track, however captivating; Unfortunately, however, you often and willingly have the impression of being faced with some filler (“Hold on” or “Hell Racer”), which, always based on a frantic four quarter -quarter, will be able to please those who are still fond of the power nineties, leaving the impression that something capable of allowing knight and partners to really stand in the modern metal panorama.
The most interesting pieces of the lot are still in the end: from the Rockent “Here We Go”, passing through the Stratovariusiana “Astral Voyager” and closing with the ride of “Ghost in the Darkness”.
In conclusion, “Oceans of Black” does not represent a decisive change of pace for the Australians, but has the advantage of floating everything in the territories of the 'disk pleasant to listen to' without too many frills. The merit is probably of the manufacturer and label who have been able to support professionals of professionals other than those with whom they usually work: at this point it is lawful to ask what impact will have this change in the future.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
