Heroes of Mighty Magic Twilight Force 2016 Nuclear Blast Records Twilight Force are a Power Metal band from Sweden which formed in 2011. Twilight Force play a vein of Power Metal that is extremely fast, with high soaring vocals and lyrics which focus on fantasy themes, swords, sorcery with heavy allusions to the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. As a band, Twilight Force would appeal to fans of Rhapsody of Fire, Pathfinder to the likes of DragonForce and Gloryhammer. Heroes of Mighty Magic is the 2nd studio album by Twilight Force and is the follow up to 2014’s Tales of Ancient Prophecies. Heroes of Mighty Magic continues a similar bardic song that began with Twilight Force’s debut album. For Heroes of Mighty Magic, the adventuring party remains the same, with nobody needing to re-roll a new character as the familiar faces of Chrileon on vocals, Lynd and Aerendir on the guitars, Blackwald on the keyboards and the rhythm section of Born and De’Azsh on the bass and drums. The production of Heroes of Mighty Magic has been done by Blackwald and Lynd. Between them, they have produced an album that is well orchestrated with someone songs written that are very good. During the production, Twilight Force opted for a sound that is designed for listening to Heroes of Mighty Magic through a pair of headphones rather than your hi-fi. A lot of people tend to listen to music on the go now and if you are one of those people who do, then you will get the full binaural experience. However, as good as this is, for those who wish to play it on their hi-fi leads you with a rather quiet and weedy sounding album. Heroes of Mighty Magic has a grandiose and epic feeling flowing throughout it, not only does it regale of tales from the fictional Twilight Kingdoms, created by Blackwald, but it would also fit alongside an 80’s Fantasy movie such as The NeverEnding Story. As expected, because of this, Heroes of Mighty Magic turns the cheese factor up to 11 and therefore, Twilight Force should only be consumed by those with a high tolerance for brie otherwise, the sound of Heroes of Mighty Magic may be too much. Heroes of Mighty Magic wastes no time kicking in the trumpet fanfares which signal the start of the first track, Battle of Arcane Might which sets the tone for the rest of the album. Once the pace is set, Heroes of Mighty Magic rarely relents, but the main problem with this is that the album is so heavily story based that it leaves you feeling bewildered occasionally as to where you are up to as it is arguable that the album overlooks hooks and memorability for story. That said, Heroes of Mighty Magic is orchestrated and arranged very well and is a credit to the work and effort that Twilight Force have put into the album, it is also forgivable that the galloping horses and bugle that beings Riders of the Dawn draws huge parallels to Stand and Deliver by Adam & the Ants. Do not think that Heroes of Mighty Magic is a bad album though, as said above, the album is well orchestrated and you won’t hear a better album of orchestral arrangement this year and there are superb guest appearances by Fabio Lione of Rhapsody of Fire on There and Back Again and Joakim Brodén of Sabaton on the title track. However, the main criticisms of Heroes of Mighty Magic other than the production is that the album is just too long, clocking in at just over 70 minutes, Heroes of Mighty Magic falls into the bracket of relatively repetitive with the penultimate track Epilogue giving a feeling of a Manowar spoken track that got out of hand at near 7 minutes. Heroes of Mighty Magic is at best an average album, yes, it’s epic, grandiose and majestic and it looks great, but falls short on the sustenance. There are some decent tracks, but as stated above, it is easy to get lost within the narrative. Heroes of Mighty Magic is far from rolling at 1, but nowhere near rolling a natural 20, its slap bang in the middle and just enough to pass your check. 5/10 Adam Flight of the Sapphire Dragon (Lynd/Blackwald)
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