SECRET OF THE RUNES

For me this is an excellent album, with a perfect blend of metal, orchestra, and operatic vocals: lots of chorus and soprano singing; as a matter of fact straight rock singing is almost unused. And it's a concept album, about Viking Mythology, talking about the nine worlds, plus the initial void that existed before the creation (Ginnungagap) and the story about how Odin gained the knowledge of the Runes (Secret of the Runes) I really love the result, and every song is a highlight for me on this album, lots of melodic passages blended with the classic heavy metal riffing, however, a track by track description would be rather useless and difficult since as a matter of fact, all songs are rather similar, though I wouldn't see this as a bad point, in this particular album. Some things that should be considered and that some people might find as negative are that the metal band aren't really doing anything particularly complex as far as playing is concerned, the album isn't as heavy as it could be (but metal is definitly it's main description anyway), and some songs can get a bit repetitive; but for me the way this album is done it all works very well in the end. Plus, the bonus tracks Crying Days (Scorpions cover) and Summernight City (ABBA cover!!!) are really good too, they are treated so as to make them a complete Therion song, that being Symphonic Operatic Metal songs (though with more Straight Rock singing than the rest of the album). The least interesting part are the two live bonus songs after this ones (but I think not every edition of this album includes them).