Thalarion

"Tunes of Dependency"

It's rather surprising that a band as Thalarion, had to wait 8 years before they could sign a contract. They finally signed with danish label Mighty Music.

Thalarion comes from Slovakia, and play a mix of melodic death and doom - a touch of goth as well. With their producer Roman Slavik the band has made a pretty decent album, where the only negative element is that, the female vocal is so dimmed, on most of the songs. One fact that lifts a doom/goth song to a higher level of quality, is a listenable bright female voice - Nela Horvathova has it, but in most of the songs you don't get to hear it. The male vocal of Juraj Grezdo which is both brutal and growling, seems to take up a little too much space. The same Juraj who has layed down some very good keyboards on the record.  Another odd thing is that they have an alt-sax on the songs "My Weakness" and "Confined". A sax may come in handy if playing funk or jazz, but is not a good instrument in a metalband. I could easily do without it. I don't mind strange and exotic instruments - not even i metal. Actually they fit in fine sometimes - just go to the german band In Extremo who use bagpipes i.e on both recordings and in live sessions. But a sax is way to special and strange, to sound well in a metal context.

Thalarion was founded back in 1990 - in general thats not a long time, but when talking rockmusic and bands, 13 years is considered a lifetime. In that period Thalarion has spent many hours in the rehersalroom, live on stage and in the studio making demos. Now they seem on the edge of a international carreer. Thalarion consist of very skilled musicians, and it will undoubtedly be a very positive experience to see them live. Please attend a gif of theirs if you get the chance. Otherwise you should grab a copy of their latest release "Tunes of Dependency"

Additional info at Thalarions label  http://www.mightymusic.dk/thalarion.html or their homepage http://thalarion.cjb.net/ - as stated on the label, but unfortunately, the site was not avaliable when the review was written.