A ten year gap from a debut album is a bit of an overwhelming fact about the power metal band that is known as Holy Knights. Residing from Italy, Holy Knights had only released their debut in 2002 and had broken up in 2003 for reasons I am unsure of. Ten years later, the band returns for its sophomore album entitled Between Daylight and Pain. Their debut album, Gate through the Past, attracted some pretty positive responses and it had seemed the band had made a clear statement that they could be held in high regards among power metal fans. Holy Knights return is one of great anticipation for their fans, but how does this album do in the long run? More along the lines of symphonic power metal, Holy Knights delivered a very worthy album for 2012, but unfortunately with an album with this much anticipation, fell a little short with me in the long run from being something truly spectacular.

The album’s wonderful album cover immediately intrigued me. The album has a good solid chunk of songs that will easily thrill a lot of power metal fans, but for me, only a handful of songs really grabbed my attention compared to the record as a whole. This album is indeed good at many junctions, but still lacked anything new or original that I haven’t had the pleasure of listening to before. The vocals however are very surprising. There is some great range and power within the voice of Dario Di Matteo. Choruses are indeed catchy at times, and when songs require him to increase his voice at higher levels, he is very consistent and balances the music well.

There isn’t too much to boast about with this album, as my time with it could only be described as the “typical power metal experience.” However there are some great highlights. The opening track, Mistery, is an absolute killer track with great melody and mood changes. There are moments that the music likes to ramp up the speed but also slows down before it gets too overbearing to focus on the softer symphonic elements this album does have a lot of. One of the best songs, Beyond the Mist, tries to keep the speed at a steady rhythm until the end where the song completely changes tone dramatically to concentrate on a more delicate symphonic metal mood. The keyboards also jump from a symphonic sound, to an almost entirely electric sound that can sound a bit dated for the year.

The farther I got into the album; one song that stood out greatly was the song, Wasted Time. It may not be the most technical songs on the album, but it is indeed one of the most memorable. Simpler the song is in truth, but has one of the most notable choruses on the album and the overall song was contagious for me and hard to forget. I don’t typically focus on repeated catchy choruses, but this one I found to be more attractive than most I’ve heard in a while. The guitar work on the album is pretty well done, but no moments really grabbed my attention fully and I can’t say there are many solos on the album that could be deemed extraordinary except for the song Awake towards the end of the album.

Holy Knights coming back after a ten year breakup is great news for fans that fell in love with their debut, and will definitely make me keep my eye on them for any future releases, granted they do not break up for another ten years. Between Daylight and Pain is a solid power metal album that has some great significant moments, but still feels repeated for the genre.