I’ll let you in on a dark secret from music reviewers: sometimes we write about stuff that is fun to write about even if it will quickly slip under the foamy surf of history. Neopera is one of these bands which is proficient in a terrible cheesy style but whose presence evokes so many observations on metal and society that it cannot be passed up. It is not an easy bash like the phenomenally boring Abysmal Lord, nor a making fun of chronic idiots like a Pantera or Meshuggah review would be, but an insight into human thinking about the uses for music and what it says about us.
To get it out of the way, let it be said that these musicians clearly know what they’re about. These players could have made an album in any style, but deliberately chose one that allowed them to target a power metal audience that wants male and female vocals with extensive harmonization and a positive outlook to the music as a whole. What emerges as a result is basically “princess metal” in that it has more in common with Disney theme songs and inspirational (Christian) rock than anything else, adorned in some folk-metal trappings but in that sweetened overly-romanticized way that works in children’s movies but not so well with red-blooded stout-hearted metal. Excessive sentimental and lush in its use of keyboards and vocals in a swell that relegates guitars to a constant background texture and primary rhythmic instrument, with drums shadowing that role, Destined Ways overflows with the kind of soaring choruses and heavy use of theme that Hollywood soundtracks made famous. The descriptions of this album mention “classical music,” but the closest it comes to that is the instrumentation and moments that sound like Andre Rieu covering Tchaikovsky with Trans-Siberian Orchestra overseeing.
Songs follow the Iron Maiden formula of a compelling intro, a descent into theme through paired contrasting motifs, and then a deepening with verse and chorus repeated in layers as melodic adornments expand the vocal, then a triumphant return and fade out in a variation on the theme. Far more organized than the average metal composers, Neopera show the promise of their name: a kind of melodramatic adaptation of the vocal forms of European music but applied through the pop formula for satisfaction with underlying metal. Fortunately, the metal they use tends to be consistent with the better half of speed metal, but it cannot take away from the perception that this music is essentially a saccharine play set to words with guitars going in the background.
Tags: neoclassical, neopera, power metal
The only band that manages to take opera and make it coherent with some decent heavy metal is Nightwish. Wishmaster, aside from a few tracks, features too much of that single note Vivaldi up-and-down wankery that happens during the solo in the track above. Century Child and Once are really good, though.
It’s all about Oceanborn. Also, it’s a shame that pretty much every single band that attempts this style sucks so hard, because the aesthetic could yield something worthwhile if handled by someone influenced by actual classical music, as opposed to Hollywood film scores. Also, the nu-metal and Britney Spears elements would have to be violently culled.
One day, perhaps….