Sound Storm
Hands up who likes their metal to be an OTT operatic freak-out of gothically grand proportions? For those of you who didn’t raise their hands now is probably the time to stop reading, but for the few remaining individuals who emphatically gestured skyward have I got the band for you! Sound Storm is their name and effusively cheese-drenched gothic power metal is their game.
Formed in Turin, Italy in 2002, Sound Storm were heavily influenced by symphonic, epic, and power metal as well as classical and Celtic folk music and started out covering the likes of Iron Maiden and Metallica. In fact their first demo consisted only of covers, including songs by Manowar and Iron Maiden, and it was only after its release in 2003 that the band began composing their own material.
2005 witnessed a couple of line-up changes and the release of the demo titled “The Storm Is Coming”, followed in 2007 by the “Northern Wilderness” EP. Upon its release the band’s sound became darker and more introspective, incorporating more gothic and symphonic elements into the mix along with the already established power and Viking metal influences. In 2009 Sound Storm signed with UK based Rising Records and recorded the long player “Twilight Opera”, due to be released some time early this year.
A concept album consisting of multiple themes including the battle between good and evil (of course), “Twilight Opera” is structured around the notion of the theatre with each song treated like separate acts in a play, and as it unabashedly unfurls it quickly becomes apparent that although rammed with hilariously overblown bombast this album is pretty damn rockin’ and played with utter conviction and technical prowess. The melodramatic reverie herein displays the kind of self-indulgent dynamism and unrestrained guitar histrionics one could easily imagine Dio sermonising to, and while Letstat’s vocals don’t come close to achieving the same kind of power and range Dio consistently demonstrates, he does a respectable job all the same.
Also featuring an 8 piece choir, string ensemble, guest soprano, and enough traditional metal riffage and keyboard arrangements that’d get even the most discerning symphonic or power metaller possibly a little too excited, Sound Storm’s fusion of the most gloriously extravagant elements of metal would go down an absolute treat at the kind of metal festival where excessive cheesiness is not only accepted but unashamedly celebrated.