UNDERTOW

Reviewed by Bruno Van Velde

Forgotten Tales - The Promise

Forgotten tales is a band from Quebec, Canada. On vocals we find Sonia Pineault, the guitar is played by Martin Desharnais, Frederick Desroches plays keyboards, Pat Vir plays bass and Cédric Prévost plays drums. Not even a year after everything started this outfit delivers here a full-length album with a solid production and cool artwork. Bands like Helloween, Stratovarius, Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray and other European power metal bands influenced Forgotten Tales. So you pretty much know what you can expect of this album.

The epic power metal will blast through your room as soon as the also epic intro is finished. What I like about Forgotten Tales is that they don't sound cheesy. They manage to keep a lot of power and aggressiveness in their compositions. Lots of European bands that play this style start to sound cheesy and often have stupid sing a long choruses. The eye catcher of this band is without doubt vocalist Sonia Pineault. This red head does not only look great but she also has a powerful voice with a considerable range.

The band wrote a basket of real attractive songs, they do not try to blow the listener away with constant double bass drumming but they put a lot of variety in their tunes and I personally like them the most when they are playing at mid tempo. A song like "Far Away" is simply beautiful. The second part of the album consists of four songs that are tied together by a concept. "The Promise" is a very impressive debut from a band that shows a lot of potential.

Note : 7,5/10