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New Finds – LXV
While still rushed, the year’s first post from this series is at least deserving of the title, since all three bands are actual new finds for me, even if they’re not also new bands and their members tend to be experienced, some of them very much so and with many other projects under their belts. On the other hand, the post is unusual because all three are power metal bands with male vocals, and it basically started forming after I happened to stumble into the first band and kept wondering why had I marked another one, which I had found some time before, as the first one that I meant to include in the next such post, because I listened to several of their songs again and didn’t like any. So I removed that other band from the list completely and began to check what YouTube was recommending as I listened to the first new find’s songs, quickly picking the second one and then deciding on the third after listening to mere parts of one song from a few others, looking for one that caught my attention right away.
That first band is Majestica, and while they have an upcoming album, scheduled to be released on February 7, and they released two songs from it already, I liked A New Beginning better, and while it seems like it won’t be included on this album, at least based on what I’m seeing at the moment, it was released last summer, so it counts as a recent song. And the second pick, the older song, would be Night Call Girl. I should note that the band existed under a different name for two decades, but I didn’t even check what was released before the change, so I’m just talking about Majestica when I say that they have solid, clear vocals, catchy choruses and good production values. I definitely still dislike those instrumental bridges where the electric guitars are left to punch through, but I guess that’s a staple of the genre and hard to avoid, and I’ve heard much, much worse than what’s in their songs from this point of view…
The second band is New Horizon, and the first pick is Apollo, even that instrumental bridge striking me as at least fitting in this song, coming after that recording of the countdown. As for the second pick, I’ll go with their debut song, We Unite. They changed vocalists last year and I’d say that the result is quite an improvement, and the overall sound seems better as well on their second album, even if there is still something that bothers me to some extent on some of the songs that I listened to.
As for The Ferrymen, it seems more like what’s called a supergroup, and the sheer number of other projects that its members have under their belts is staggering, so their experience is unquestionable. It might, on the other hand, make one question their ability to commit, but they seem to be sticking to this one project, which doesn’t seem to have had any changes in lineup since the first album, released in 2017. Either way, the first pick, from the album that was just released yesterday, is Mother Unholy. As for the second pick, I’ll go with Still Standing Up, which is actually just from that first album that I already mentioned. These two may be the most powerful of the ones that I listened to, but I’d say that the vocals make all of their songs impart a sense of determination, beyond the confidence that’s to be expected from such experienced singers.