CoC : Bride Adorned - The Grey Eminence : Review

Bride Adorned - _The Grey Eminence_
by: Pedro Azevedo (5 out of 5)

The Rhapsody shirt on one of the members in the group photo may be rather revealing of the band's influences, but Bride Adorned's mixture of power metal and somewhat Therion-like chants worked far better for me than I initially expected. This Finnish band, whilst technically very good and able to create some fine melodies and arrangements, fortunately seems quite concerned with not allowing technicality to become needlessly flashy or melody to become annoyingly repetitive (even if their band name may not suggest that). The instrumental side flows very well and is greatly enhanced by a choir that consists of four male and four female voices. The song structures are generally interesting (particularly on the title track) and production is very good for a demo CD. The whole thing could of course have sounded a lot darker for my taste, but the choirs and inventive instrumental sections ensure that _The Grey Eminence_ does not end up a boring piece of standard power metal, nor is it a cheerful-sounding one within its genre. The sheer amount of work that appears to have gone into the making of this demo is indeed remarkable per se. Add that to the fact that even though I am not a power metal fan I still enjoyed this demo, and I don't think you can ask any more from a -demo- release.

Contact: brideadorned@hotmail.com

(article published 10/1/2001)