By Beatrice Silingardi

This collection is very well-made, because it contains at least one band or singer for all the main genres of metal music. There are two CDs. Let’s talk about the first. This one includes lots of hardcore, symphonic and gothic bands, for example Suicidal Ride, Dark Down Project, Wrathrone and Viper Arms. If I have to choose my favourite song, I’ll definitely say  “Welcome to the den” by Mad Matter’s Den (which remand to Rhapsody Of Fire for contents and tunes) because I think these lines (“I am what you fear/Your endless night of pain/your nightmare becomes real/and your destiny is sealed”) could represent sensations that everyone has proved at least one time in his life. Then, there are more Symphonic bands, like Teardown (which recall Lacuna Coil for the acoustic), and some similar-Gregorian stuff ( Beyond the dream,Lovijatar,Division XIX and Cry of Pain).They are obviously different form each other, for example Division XIX are on the borderline between  Gregorian and Pink Floyd, whereas Lovijatar sings more a cappella songs and Cry of Pain more ballads.

Talking about CD 2 , it’s almost the same, but there are less hardcore bands and growl singers. Though I am not denying the value of their music, I could not find to my liking bands like Fractured Spine, Noumena, Among the pray, Thyrien and Torchia because they’re too hardcore for me ( I prefer “clean” voices ). The song I liked the most is “Three rivers” by Lucy Pherson, because of his voice: even though it’s raspy (it could sound in contradiction with what I’ve said before) the contrast between his voice and the music is likeable. Some bands that are noteworthy are Enthring with “Citadel” (the beginning in a Renaissance style is very original),Burnclear with “Lost for life” (the singer has a very clear and powerful voice even when the tonality decrease),Embassy of silence(for the female voices), Crimsonic and Block of Flats ,that reminds, respectively, Avantasia and Blink 182. The only weakness of this collection is that some bands aren’t unique : they’re all too similar to other famous bands, so they don’t sound odd.