Cain's Dinasty - Legacy Of Blood (2008) (Japan POCE-16035)

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Cain's Dinasty - Legacy Of Blood (2008) (Japan POCE-16035)

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That cover art is sure to pull in a lot of horny young men, but luckily Cain's Dinasty have more up their sleeve than a few gorgeous vampiric dames fondling eachother. This band plays melodic, speedy Power Metal with a creative fire lit under their ass the size of Wisconsin, and Legacy of Blood is their debut album. You see, Cain's Dinasty have donned their velvet capes and grabbed their coffins, plunging into the shadows of the night with a dire thirst for blood and a penchant for danger, death and the devil - and really good Metal music, too, for their saccharine-sweet brand of Power Metal is one heavily rooted in vampiric mythos. Not the lame Hot Topic kind, either, as far as I can tell; this is the real deal.

Musically, this doesn't sound too close to a carbon copy of any band I can think of. The songwriting is agile and snappy, the riffs are smoking, smoldering slabs of steel that will no doubt please the traditional Heavy Metal fan in all of you, and the vocals are an accented, high-pitched wail reminding of Kai Hansen or perhaps Tobias Sammet at a Halloween party. The melodies are tinged with a certain Gothic feel to them, transporting the listener to a 15th century Gothic cathedral, the lights dimmed, shadows dancing all around the sidelines like Exotic callgirls. The backing harsh vocals utilized on several tracks is a huge plus, as well, adding the demonic touch that Legacy of Blood needed to further its chosen gimmick, and just sounding really fucking cool when combined with Ruben Picazo's shrill wailing.

This is a pretty short and direct album, and it packs enough variety to keep the more picky sorts interested: heavy, chugging speed attacks that put the recent works of Iron Savior and Gamma Ray to shame, touching ballads, and a few midpaced quasi-epics for good measure. The opening epic bombast of the title track is perhaps the best recitation of the Power Metal genre we'll hear this year, with a set of blistering, powerful riffs, screaming solos and basslines as sharp as Dracula's wisdom teeth, and it's probably the best song here, but Cain's Dinasty packs some other good tunes too. "Two Seconds to Forget Your Name" is good, a midpaced epic that romps forth with some commanding riff patterns and a mature melodic sensibility that honestly surprised me. "Under the City Lights" is another good one along the same lines, and "Infancia Eternia" is a malicious, bloodthirsty tune with a cool vocal tradeoff chorus and a barrelfull of stuttering machine-gun harmonic riffs, and "Come to Me" is an excellent piano ballad. Cain's Dinasty do not disappoint, and with a debut this strong, one can only hope they up the ante next time and make an even better album. Very, very cool stuff.

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