Van Canto - A Storm To Come
Self Release
A-Capella Melodic Metal
9 songs (37:16)
Release year: 0
Van Canto
Reviewed by Ross
Surprise of the month
When I put my name down to review A Storm To come I had a few WTF am I doing moments. I mean, the only A-Capella I’d ever heard were them ‘Barber Shop’ type singers, the Lawyer and his friends group from the TV Show Scrubs and various groups that hang around the streets during the Edinburgh Festival. But, A-Capella Metal, they must be having a laugh; oh well, at least I’ll get a chuckle out of it if nothing else.

The CD duly arrived with a promo sheet looking all professional and slick, but it was the covering letter that really caught my attention. It signed off by saying “Thank you and have fun with this CD.” That sold it for me right there. Any mention of fun and I’m right at the front of the queue. It also put me in the right frame of mind for listening to the CD: That was to sit back, relax and enjoy this new experience. It actually felt kinda strange not having to listen for memorable guitar riffs, hooks or solos, keyboards or bass guitaring. To try and explain and encapsulate the whole Van Canto sound, imagine this – You are at a gig, not a mentalist’s day out kinda gig where you try and collect as many blood types on your t-shirt in the Mosh-Pit as you can kinda gig, but a more Euro Symphonic / Melodic / Power Metal gig. A gig by the likes of Blind Guardian, Rhapsody Of Fire, Galloglass, Stratovarius and the like. With me so far? Okay, the band come to one of their memorable choruses and everyone in the crowd joins in louder than the band. The band stop playing, only the drums keeping the beat, the frontman points the microphone at the crowd and gets you all to sing the chorus again, and the crowd sing their little hearts out. Just think of that only on a real smaller scale and you’re getting the idea of Van Canto’s sound. Another way to give you an idea of their sound is – A lot of Euro Symphonic / Melodic / Power Metal songs intro with some classic vocal harmonies then the musical instruments kick in. Well, something like that, only without the musical instruments, in their place vocal harmonies going ‘Rakka-Takka’ and ‘Dan-Dan’.

Perhaps if I were to introduce the band and let you know what they each do, it might make things clearer:

Dennis P. Schunke – Male lead vocals – No explanation required here
Inga Scharf – Female lead vocals – No explanation required here either
Ross Thompson - Higher rakka-takka vocals – Takes the place of Lead guitar
Stefan Schmidt - Lower rakka-takka vocals – Takes the place of Rhythm guitar
Ingo Sterzinger - Deep dan-dan vocals – Takes the place of Bass guitar
Dennis Strillinger – Drums – well Duh!!

First track, mid tempo Stora Rövardansen is from the movie soundtrack ’Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter’ and is a light and airy, almost operatic song. It has that almost stereotypical A-Capella sound that your mind conjures up when you hear the phrase A-Capella. That thought is soon cast aside when the drums kick in with some excellent double kick patterns getting the song trotting along and when Stora Rövardansen bleeds into King thing change up a couple of gears. The Mission and Lifetime are faster tempo songs and have Shunke giving a rough edge to his vocals, Inga’s vocals give brilliant high end harmonies with Ingo giving some astounding low end bass vocals. In Lifetime and the next track Rain Inga sings in a clear, less high operatic voice, and it has that quiver down you spine quality. Rain also sees the first, ahem, ‘Guitar Solo?’. It’s quite good actually, it sounds like he uses a guitar distortion pedal to get that squealy guitar sound. She’s Alive is perhaps my least favourite song on the album; the constant repetition of “She’s Alive” kinda gets to you after a while. Now, I Stand Alone really is the business. The vocal harmonies are just awesome. I’m not really a fan of ballads but this one totally hooked me. More than just the harmonies, the timing as each singer jumps in is awe-inspiring; in fact my awe has never been so inspired for a long, long time. Starlight is a fast paced song with plenty of harmonious ‘Rakka-Takkas’ and another ‘Guitar Solo?’ that really brought a smile to my face. Their final song is probably going to be their most controversial – a cover of Metalallica’s Battery. Hardcore Metallica fans are going to hate it instantly and be full of ‘How Dare They’ righteous indignation. Y’know, the same reaction they had when they first heard Beatallica. Me, I loved it. I played the Master Of Puppet’s version to compare them and Van Canto definitely stamped their mark firmly on their rendition; even the Kirk Hammett style solo was pure genius. Oh am I going to get shit on the Forum for this:-D

Van Canto have created and developed something new here, and if I get back to what I was on about earlier, it is fun. Not fun as in a joke but as entertainment and that is part of what music should do – Entertain! Yes there will be times when you want to put on something that will psyche you up, or calm you down, or to put you in the mood to bump uglies with your ‘Significant Other’. A Storm To Come is a CD you can play in the car when the rest of your family is travelling with you and you won’t get the whine to “Get that noise off!”. They have four songs on their My Space site, go along and have a listen it’s at myspace.com/vancanto (This is not a link). Hopefully it will bring a smile to your face too.
Killing Songs :
King, Rain, I Stand Alone
Ross quoted 85 / 100
Other albums by Van Canto that we have reviewed:
Van Canto - Dawn of the Brave reviewed by Jared and quoted 80 / 100
Van Canto - Break the Silence reviewed by Alex and quoted 82 / 100
Van Canto - Tribe of Force reviewed by Alex and quoted 82 / 100
4 readers voted
Average:
 93
You did not vote yet.
Vote now

There are 3 replies to this review. Last one on Thu Dec 07, 2006 3:26 pm
View and Post comments