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The Storyteller: Sacred Fire
The Storyteller - Sacred Fire CD Album Review

The Storyteller: Sacred Fire

Power Metal
3.5/5.0

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Dark Legacy Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 19.02.2015

As we all know, the larger European theater is rife with classic power metal bands, with Scandinavia adding more than a few of their own. It's like the abundance of lawyers in our world. Unless you live in the outback or boondocks, you can't through a stone in Europe without hitting a power metal band square between their double bass drums.

The Storyteller Photo

The Storyteller

The Storyteller, from Sweden, cranks out their sixth album of traditional European power metal, Sacred Fire. They follow the familiar formula with galloping tunes wrapped in melodic arrangements, harmonious guitars, and more than a few dynamic guitar solos. They add some folk and symphonic touches, as with Coming Home, but overall, they're slight.

The vocalist, L-G Persson, has a gruff, but harmonious, presentation sounding much like a cross between Hansi Kürsch and Tobias Sammet. And this time around he's dropped the experimentation with grunts and growls. Unfortunately, given the the expectations of the band's name, Persson isn't all that clear. You're going to want to have the lyrics in front of you to get the story. And I'm suspecting the band's stories are more tales about Norse mythology, battles, fantasy, and other such power metal geekery.

Excepting the aforementioned anthem, Coming Home, most every song is a measure of the above characteristics. Play one song, and just hit repeat. In this sense The Storyteller is no different from their peers like Blind Guardian or Hammerfall. And since there seems to be room for them and a host of other minor to relatively unknown bands, The Storyteller drops in place. So what are we to conclude? Sacred Fire is more of the same, sans the dirty vocals of the previous album. Thankfully, The Storyteller is both skilled and efficient at their power metal craft. While generic and repetitive, they still put vigor and extravagance in every song, perhaps the two fundamental elements of all power metal. If you like the genre and like the band, then definitely get this album. I suspect you won't be disappointed.

The Storyteller - One Last Stand (Official music video)


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In Short

While generic and repetitive, The Storyteller still puts vigor and extravagance in every song, perhaps the two fundamental elements of all power metal. If you like the genre and like the band, then definitely get this album.

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