Nightglow - Orpheus

In past reviews I have mentioned how I often pick up and try bands based on their cool cover artwork. Well, at first, this artwork was not impressive enough to make me give it a look, it just seems kind of remedial, and yet at the same time kind of eerie.The artwork was blah, but the color scheme and content was a bit captivating.

Then I read a little of the band's style and the term "Classic Heavy Metal" appeared, which is one of my fave styles, so I read on.

Nightglow saw the light of the day in 2003 and soon established themselves as a Classic Heavy Metal band devoted to the great English acts of the Eighties. After many years of live performances (also as the official Manowar Italian tribute band), collaborations with many international acts such as Lizzy Borden, Eric Martin, Kiko Loureiro, Fabio Lione, Jack Starr to name a few, and a critically acclaimed debut album, Nightglow are ready to come back with a new effort combining all their past influences and projecting them to the future. ‘Orpheus’, this is the title of the new work, sounds heavy and refreshing, delivering great melodies, powerful guitar riffs and groovy rhythms like there was no tomorrow. The album was recorded at B-Demolition Studios, with mixing and mastering by Tuvo (Shake Well Before) at Try Studios. The artwork was handled by Alessandro Conti (Trick or Treat, Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody). A special guest appearance by Sara Ciucci from folk metal band Artaius has also been announced.

I was less thrilled with them being a band that is openly vulgar in their music/lyrics, so their song song entitled "F%$k You" was a strike against them in my book. But laying that aside, musically they have a classic metal sound, but yet very much a modern metal sound. Kind of along the vein of other modern classic metal sounding bands like Black Label Society, Iced Earth and the like. Vocally they have a heaviness and grit to them, taking them out of the "melodic" metal category, and placing them along side of bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Disturbed, etc. Not really crossing over into the death growl or scream style, it is just solid metal all around.

I am not sure if there is anything original enough here to keep my attention for very long, but I have enjoyed the spins I have given it and say it is worth a check out for modern and classic metal fans alike.