RAINTIME - Flies & Lies

Flies & Lies is just a natural follow-up to the debut Tales from the Sadness, thankfully choosing the path of evolution, both by the content and the high-quality production provided by Tommy Hansen (Helloween, Gamma Ray, TNT, etc.). Like Raintime's previous product, this is hard to place in a specific genre, lying most likely somewhere around the border between melodic death and power metal, while integrating heavy, thrash or even black metal ingredients. It starts with guns blazing and goes on the same, the voice switches from growl to clean and does great in both, the rhythmic section is a wall, guitars strike incessantly with death riffs and are tamed by whirlwind of power-metal-ish keyboards. It seems that Beat It (Michael Jackson) is the flavor of the season for metal covers, as this is the second version I hear in the recent months (the first coming from Inactive Messiah), and it is done more than ok. We also have a classic power metal ballad, Finally Me, and a bridge, Burning Doll, and rather convincing moments, although they fail to match the title song, such as the splendid solo of Rolling Chances, the sweeping Matrioska, ca semi-hardcore Aperion, bringing in Jacob “J” Bredahl (Hatespere), the chorus of Tears of Sorrow or the superb Another Transition, where we can hear the already unmistakable singing of Lars F. Larsen (Manticora). The album is catchy and complex and sounds like good teamwork; it should keep a lot of different tastes happy. If these Italians can keep up in the same direction I see them making an impact in the future.
(+) memorable songwriting, successful mixture of styles, interesting elements, no monotony
(-) it lacks that “something” that would make it brilliant

Mad Nota: 9