TALES OF LOVE AND BLOOD

Somebody called him "Genius". Not far from the truth indeed. "Tales of Love and Blood" is well-crafted project based on horror tales, misty legends and melancholy stories. Nothing new of course, but the grace and writing skills of Gabriele "Archangel" Manzini have managed to portrait nine atmospheric tracks bound together in 3 suites. Under the progressive structures of the songs lies the love for the classic heavy dark-rock of the seventies, all mixed with the sound of the 2k heavy music. I can't find anything related to Arena or some other new-prog combo. It is more related to Rick Wakeman or some new dark wave like The Sisters of Mercy, or a progressive version of Paradise Lost. A really daring experiment to mix some famous traks like "Nosferatu" from The Blue Oyster Cult and "My Only Love" from Roxy Music. They perfectly fit the plot and the athmosphere. The italian singers work fine and Damian Wilson (Threshold, Headspace, Ayreon...) is the absolute matador as always. The progressive "Misplaced Love", the ghostly "The Black Bride" and the long and doomy "The Night Scythe" hand us a great work. Archangels has greatly improved from the first good CD "The Akallabeth", from a writing and a production point of view and this is an absolutely suggested purchase!