FURY’N GRACE - Tales Of The Arabesque And The Grotesque

Fury’N Grace - Tales Of The Arabesque And The Grotesque

8 songs
67:29 minutes
***** ***
Dragonheart

Bandpage

Some bands show a tremendous amount of patience, like Italian doom newcomers whose career started actually already thirteen years ago, and who recorded two albums that were never released, but they didn’t give up all the time, and decided, if at first or second you don’t succeed, maybe you just have to try a third time. Formed by people who used to play or still play with Doomsword and Gjallarhorn, you still shouldn’t expect any kind of horned Viking metal. Instead, the album title, taken from an Edgar Allen Poe collection, reveals that Fury’N Grace’s music heads into a more antique or even Victorian direction. Instead of offering normal length songs, you get five epic tracks between eight and seventeen minutes long. The quarter hour title track is subdivided into three parts, and from there on the band continues with their uncatchy material which isn’t bad at all though, and ends the record with a short, progressive, acoustic track.

The songwriting actually takes getting used to, as they feel a bit like miniature operas, going from one mood to another, and instead of relying on prog metal antics, the band revels in complex structures that reveal themselves only after a couple of times having gone through the entire album. Combining doom, prog, classical heavy and even slight death metal elements into a rather original brew, Fury’N Grace crown their achievement with the extraordinary vocalist Gabriele Grilli whose voice reminds me a little of the late J.D. Kimball (Omen) and Flemming Rönsdorf (Artillery), which is rather atypical for the band’s chosen genre.

At times I wish that this debut (even if it was preceded by two unreleased album) were a little more accessible, but Tales Of The Arabesque And The Grotesque is at no time boring or irrelevant. It is rather one of those rare heavy metal albums that demand a lot of attention and patience from their audience. Who would expect anything else with only one track below the ten minute border? Recommended for fans of brainy metal that don’t need finger twisting antics to prove that the band members know their trade. But be warned, this CD really takes some time getting used to.

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