Power Quest – Blood Alliance

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If there was an award for most clichéd power metal band, the UK’s Power Quest would certainly be in the running – and with a name like that, chances of winning would be pretty high! The brain child of former Dragonforce keyboard player Steve Williams, the band found its previous line up dissolve in 2009. Determined to carry on, the band was replaced with a set of new faces, including ex-Firewind and Civilisation One singer Chity Somapala. Blood Alliance is the new line up’s first album and the fifth overall, showcasing the band’s fast and highly melodic sound, complete with some catchy and memorable tunes. Despite being firmly rooted in power metal, Blood Alliance often ventures into almost AOR-like territory. This is mostly a result of Steve Williams’ very prominent and somewhat retro synth style, evoking plenty of 80s soft rock charm. There’s definitely a number of times where it sounds like the band want to rewrite Van Halen‘s Jump, and on songs like Sacrifice and Better Days, the band even begin to sound like a faster, louder but less graceful Journey. For the most part, its all rather enjoyable – if perhaps a bit trite and just a touch too cheesy, even for some more enthusiastic power metal fans. Lyrically, the album can become almost embarrassing, from the power metal clichés present in Glorious (“Over rainbows and stars…” – really, we had to go there?) to the cringe worthy ‘analysis’ of the UK’s economic woes and the credit crunch in Crunching The Numbers. This isn’t helped by Chity Somapala, who has sounded much better than he does on this record – he just sounds slightly out of place and ill-fitting, his voice sounding just a bit too separate from the rest of the music. This all being said, whilst Blood Alliance has its flaws and should be avoided by non-power metal fans like the plague, it has enough fast and friendly hooks that those who do like things rather cheesy might enjoy it.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Power Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Power Quest