CD REVIEW: VAN CANTO – Voices Of Fire
CD REVIEW: VAN CANTO – Voices Of Fire
e-a-r music/Sony
11 March, 2016
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
9/10
These are strange times we live in, folks. Just when we started to get our heads around Viking metal, math metal and folk metal, along come Van Canto, a German group who proudly fly the flag of a cappella metal!
I’m obviously late to the party as this is Van Canto’s sixth album, their first being released in 2006. It also sounds like a symphonic – or perhaps choral may be a better description – metal band. We are assured that although there are five vocalists performing this metal opera of good versus evil, that only two – Dennis Schunke and Inga Scharf – assume the lead vocal role. That leaves Ross Thompson and Stefan Schmidt to perform the guitar tracks vocally, and Jan Moritz to handle the bass parts vocally. Rather than enlist a beatboxer, Van Canto have Bastian Emig playing real drums on record and live.
Bringing the story even further to life are narrator John Rhys-Davies (who we all recognise from Lord Of The Rings, the Indiana Jones movies, and many more roles) and the wonderful children’s choir from Chorakademie Dortmund, but it’s the songs and their soaring vocal melodies that rise above the novelty of the band’s premise.
Yes, strange days indeed… and even stranger too is that Voices Of Fire is a fantastic metal album – even without an actual guitar involved.
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Category: CD Reviews