Phantom Lord - Circle Of The Wasted
Black Lotus Records
Power Metal
11 songs (58'11)
Release year: 2002
Black Lotus
Reviewed by Marty
Circle Of The Wasted is the third album from this Greek metal band. The band consists of Yiannis Fiorentis, guitar, Vasilis Axiotis, vocals, Elias Karahalios, drums, Leonidas Petropoulos, bass and Michalis Ligiaris on keyboards. Their music is in the fine tradition of German Power Metal with lots of other influences, some subtle and some obvious. A very 80's style sound really does bring bands like Leige Lord to mind, as Danny pointed out in his review of their last album, Evil's Domain. The band plays a dramatic and grittier style of metal with great powerful vocals and do it with a certain air of unpredictability.

Along with speedy Power Metal, the band mixes in lots of keyboard orchestrations and many of the vocal melodies, especially the choruses, bear the instantly recognizable Michael Kiske style. Other Helloween influences are found throughout as well, although not as obvious, especially with some of the guitar playing. Some of the more slower pounding heavy songs namely, the title track, Circle Of The Wasted even have a Uriah Heep feel with the keyboards and heavy guitar riffs and especially the multi-layered vocal harmonies. The Heep influence almost brought chills down my spine when I heard the intro to Lust For Your Touch. A nice piano is accompanied by vocals that I though for sure were done by a resurrected David Byron!! (R.I.P.). Some of the riffing really reminds me of older classic Mercyful Fate and the overall sound, atmosphere and some Geoff Tate style vocals really reminds one of the early days of Queensryche (Queensryche E.P. and The Warning). The first listen to this band also brought back memories of the first time I heard Angel Dust's Enlighten The Darkness album. The heavy riffing and atmospheric keyboards used by Phantom Lord have a similar style to that particular album.

Some great offbeat riffing and a great epic style make Inferno another album highlight. This one also contains numerous Savatage influences and shows the band playing an angrier and more U.S. Power Metal style. There's a very nice instrumental on this album, Crystal Of The Heart which really displays the talents of guitarist Yiannis Fiorentis. This very emotional and classically styled number features some nice acoustic and classical guitar work and is accompanied by a small string section. Cyber Heartbeat is much faster paced song, also in the Angel Dust tradition with the keyboard fills over heavy riffing and is another highlight.

Several tracks on this album are in the power ballad style and although a couple tend to be a bit "over the top" in their attempts at being emotional and dramatic, none really have any of the "cheesiness" that can sometimes be found when Power Metal bands do these sorts of songs. This band really knows how to pull it off in that respect.

The only real fault I can find with this band are that they try to be too diverse and put way too many changes in some of their songs. Every song here has a melodic hook, a chorus or a riff that I really like, it's just that when looking at some of the songs as a whole, they suffer from poor song structure or they just have too much happening to capture the listener and keep their interest. It seems like the band is even experimenting with a more progressive style on a few tracks but they seem to get lost on some very unnecessary "tangents" that although may be technically difficult and sound cool, do nothing to really help the songs.

This band has a passionate, dramatic and heavy sound and are actually pretty interesting to listen to. They have some very good ideas and even though I've mentioned lots of influences that I hear in their sound, they do make an attempt to create something new and original in an already over-crowded genre. I think that this band is still trying to "find" themselves and are still maturing. It's great to see some of the smaller labels investing in and nurturing a band like this. It just shows that some bands take a few albums to blossom and that even some of the greatest bands of all-time took 2 or 3 albums to fully mature and be the best that they can be. This band has the sound, style, great vocals, great musical ideas and overall talent, it's just that they still need some work on putting it all together into a more structured style of metal that they can forge their own identity with.

Killing Songs :
Circle Of The Wasted, Inferno and Cyber Heartbeat
Marty quoted 70 / 100
Other albums by Phantom Lord that we have reviewed:
Phantom Lord - Evil's Domain reviewed by Danny and quoted 75 / 100
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