Combine the choirs and epic, flowery melodies of Freedom Call with the vocals, riffs and lyrics of early Hammerfall. Then, take away the quality songwriting and all traces of originality that define both bands. Finally, add in an album title that blatantly rips off the name of DragonForce’s first album, and you have the recipe for Ravenheart's debut, one of the most boring and uninspired power metal albums I’ve heard in a long, long time.

I discovered Ravenheart when I was over at my buddies’ house a few weeks ago while he was looking up music to download from Rhapsody (The music service, not the band). He, being a big DragonForce fan yet too cheap to buy their debut, went searching for it, but to his dismay he only found their two most recent albums, both of which he owns. Then, out of the hopes that the album might’ve been misplaced on another band’s page, he typed Valley Of The Damned in the search bar. It may have just been a coincidence, or perhaps bad luck, or maybe even karma taking its course (if that’s true then my friend must’ve done many a bad thing in his life), but by doing this he stumbled across Valley Of The Damned; not the classic from DragonForce, mind you, but from the little-known power metal band Ravenheart.

Now my pal, being a big PM junkie, listened to thirty seconds of the first track before deciding to download the entire album. I, however, am rather particular about my power metal, and what I briefly heard from Ravenheart’s 2008 debut did nothing to spark my interest. But when I went home and later that evening started searching for new albums to download myself (I also use Rhapsody), I wound up returning to Ravenheart’s page and listening to a few more of their songs. After a while I heard a little voice in the back of my head: ”It’s power metal, Kyle. It has epic choirs and catchy-as-hell choruses. What more could you possibly need?” But I dismissed this thought from my mind, knowing that there was better metal out there for me, and continued browsing for music. But then, every time I would look for music after that day, I would always hear that same voice, and to my misfortune I eventually gave in to it. After all, I did have some free space in my MP3 player, and I had discovered other bands that I really enjoy in the past this way, so I might enjoy this, right?

Wrong. I soon found that Valley Of The Damned, while it holds a few good tracks is, overall, an uninspired mess. I realize that this is the band’s first full-length, and while the production is better than normal for a debut, it can’t mask the crappy songwriting. Absolutely nothing about this album is original; in fact, if I didn’t know that this was Ravenheart’s music, I would’ve guessed that this is a compilation of Freedom Call’s most mediocre B-sides.

Valley Of The Damned starts off with the best four songs on the album (Valley Of The Damned, Heaven And Back, Reborn, Lords Of Power), each one packed with speed, soaring vocals, and powerful melodies, along with traditional heavy metal riffs and your typical cheesy power metal yarns about dreams and fantasy and flying and whatnot. But after this, we’re presented with an array of ballads, interludes, and mid-paced tracks that are “Okay” at most. Though the first four tracks are easily the best, nothing really stands out amongst the fourteen(!) tracks that span the length of an hour. By the time the seventh track rolls around, you’re already worn out just halfway through the album due to boring, repetitive songs. The vocalist is fairly good, and sounds to me like a mix of Joacim Cans of Hammerfall and of another power metal singer that I can't remember at the moment (It's been bugging me for days! I'll think of it soon enough though...), and the guitar solos are quite catchy and well-executed without being too flashy, but the riffs and drumming are the same damn thing you've heard on a million other power metal albums, and much better at that. Most of the tracks start out fast to mid-paced in tempo before changing speed and slowing down at the end; I guess this is Ravenheart taking a stab at original songwriting, but it just ends up sounding forced, and they do it far too often.

As I’ve said before, Ravenheart is nothing more than a Freedom Call rip-off; most of the melodies sound like they were torn straight from Stairway To Fairyland, and they even have Christian Bay as a guest singer on here (Despite him being one of my favorite power metal vocalists, he sounds oddly pitchy here). Even their logo looks like a combination between Freedom Call’s and DragonForce’s. Ravenheart DOES have potential, though, and this is only their debut, so they have quite a bit of room to grow in sound on future albums. But there’s nothing you havn’t heard before on Valley Of The Damned, and while it holds some fun power metal tracks and one or two memorable moments (The chorus of the title track and the intro to Heaven And Back are highlights), you’re much better off listening to Freedom Call, which is just like Ravenheart anyway… except, you know, good.