TRIUMPH OR AGONY

Rhapsody's first album after an unfortunate trademark dispute prompted them to add "of Fire" to their name (but they'll always simply be Rhapsody to me) feels like a bit of a stumble to me. Perhaps they were thrown a little off their game by the unwanted legal pressures, but it seems to rely a bit more on flabby orchestral filler than Rhapsody ever have before, and the band's metal passages don't soar the way they do in previous albums. They're still just about tight enough to keep my attention, and hopefully now that the sinister Seventh Book has been discovered in the story the action will pick up, but as far as Triumph or Agony is concerned my answer is "neither" - it might not be agony to listen to, but it's certainly not a musical triumph in its own right.