METAL MAIDENS

Reviewed by Toine Van Poorten

Forgotten Tales - The Promise

FORGOTTEN TALES are from Quebec in Canada, and they present us some heavenly metal on their debut album "The Promise". Their music can almost be categorised in the huge list of bands like STRATOVARIUS, GAMMA RAY, HELLOWEEN, BLIND GUARDIAN, ANGRA, RHAPSODY, EDGUY and HAMMERFALL, but FORGOTTEN TALES goes far beyond these great bands. Reason for that are two things. First of all they have a great female singer, which gives a certain input to the music, that makes it their own. None of the other bands, listed here above, can rely on a great female singer like FORGOTTEN TALES. The second extra that this band has, in contrary to most of the bands, that I already mentioned here, and that's the fact they play songs with a great structure. Most of the time, their songs have just that little extra, something I miss with some of the other bands. For example, take a great ballad like "Far Away"., which is an unbelievable cool song, that shows you the magnificent song structures, I was talking about and it definately brings out the best in Sonia's voice. FORGOTTEN TALES consists of Frédérick Desroches on keyboards, Martin Desharnais on guitars, Pat Vis on bass, Cédric Prévost on drums and Sonia Pineault on vocals. How come, that we never heard about this amazing band before?? I think, the main reason is the giant distance between the two countries, and I'm not kidding here.

The band was founded because René Pineault, the manager of the band, is a dedicated Euro Metal lover. He wanted to make the Canadian people aware of this great music style. And FORGOTTEN TALES was the ultimate band, that would show them what this music is all about. None of the well known Euro Metal bands had ever played live in Canada before. I think that the distance was too huge for them, too. Reason enough to create your own Canadian 'Euro Metal' band, so to speak. And there you have it, a band that mixes Canadian musiciansship (just listen to the creative keyboard lines and the amazingly fast fretwork on some of the songs!!) with European power metal influences. Ten tracks with a total time of about forty-five minutes will let you enjoy, the best imaginable style of the 'Euro Metal' sound. Both thumbs up for this initiative and for this great band. Please pay some special attention to the great artwork on the CD sleeve, and find out all the latest information on the bands website at: www.forgottentales.com.

Note : 9/10