Anthenora - The Last Command
Locomotive Music
Heavy Metal
10 songs (45:09)
Release year: 2004
Anthenora, Locomotive Music
Reviewed by Jason

Formed in 1990 after being star struck by Maiden’s performance at the “Monsters of Rock” concert in Modena, Anthenora united to rock most of Europe for more than 10 years now with the classics that inspired them. Today, bearing the title of Italy’s most well-known Iron Maiden cover band, Anthenora has decided to ease off the odes to Metal’s Legend for a while in order to introduce the world to their own creation titled “The Last Command”.

Anthenora’s music is a standard dose of Heavy Metal profoundly inspired by bands such as Iron Maiden, Saxon, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Accept, Grave Digger and Helloween. Although instrumentally they draw heavily from their influences, Anthenora manages to expertly incorporate elements of the aforementioned bands while proficiently putting their own creative spin, making this an entertaining album to listen to. Each song features energetic melodies, catchy choruses, and rock solid bass lines that can easily be heard from beginning to end. Though Luigi Bonansea definitely won’t win Metal singer of the year, he definitely makes his presence felt on the album with his sharp vocals that occasionally chute down into sinister rasps.

The Album begins blazing with the almost-Power-Metal title track “The Last Command”, and introduces you to Bonansea’s tremulous voice. The tune features a typical power chord fiesta accompanied by some strong bass that is truly reminiscent of Maiden’s “The Clairvoyant”. “The Last Command” is then followed by “Operation Sea Lion”, which is one of the better and more melodious tracks on the album as Bonansea refrains from overshooting his vocals, and sings a harmonious chorus that requires less vocal range compared to the other tracks. The same can’t be said for tunes such as “Prophet of Sorrow” and “Hunter” which feature Bonansea’s vocals at their most tremulous. These tracks eventually just get downright annoying about half way through and will compel almost anyone to press the next button on my CD player.

Most of the songs feature top-notch musicianship that manages to delve widely in Heavy Metal Spectrum. The furious solos and beat change-ups are entertaining to dissect, but unfortunately Bonansea makes this task somewhat arduous. If I were to have the opportunity to offer Anthenora some advice, I would surely tell them to either hone Bonansea’s vocal skills or change singers altogether. Overall this is a decent debut for the Maiden hailing quintet that call themselves Anthenora, but hopefully in the future they will make up for the sub par singing.

Killing Songs :
"Operation Sea Lion", "The Last Command"
Jason quoted 71 / 100
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