I have a hell of a lot of respect and admiration for guitarist and songwriter Frederico Mondelli. In only a few short years he has showcased immense musical expertise in all his varied Metal projects, and done this with immeasurable integrity and gravitas. He excels in each Metal genre he wishes to dip his musical toe into – Frozen Crown are Power Metal at its finest, Nocturna is Symphonic Metal exemplified, Be The Wolf has more than enough to interest any Progressive Metal devotee and Volturian is…well…kind of ‘everything else’, but also done so very, very well.
Vocalist Frederica Lanna proved herself to be an accomplished, dark and varied vocalist on the band’s debut release “Crimson”, and her gothic influenced low-slung vocal style continues to impress here on “Red Dragon”, perfectly depicting an album inspired by Thomas Harris’ ‘Red Dragon’ (the novel which gave birth to Hannibal Lecter), plus Alan Moore & Frank Miller’s graphic novels. Vocally Lanna’s confidence continues to grow and compliment Mondelli’s songwriting experimentation evermore, pushing their Dark Metal boundaries further and further. To assist the uninitiated, if pushed I’d maybe pitch the band’s sound somewhere between Nemesea and current Within Temptation, with a bit of anything from Lacuna Coil to Depeche Mode thrown in, but comparisons are very difficult as the tracks encompass so many alternative-leaning Metal styles.
“Red Dragon” maybe has a darker feel on the whole than its predecessor, possibly due to the lyrical concept, or even by design to further distance this from Mondelli’s other projects, but the slight musical shift suits the bands style well, and the album still includes all the great musical hooks and vocal melodies that anyone who enjoyed the previous album would hope for. Many of the gothic-electro moments are to the fore, kicking off many of the tracks, as well as providing the album’s intro and outro this time around. Although this is a style that personally I’m not hugely enamoured with, it lends another angle and boosts the album’s rather brief running time by an extra five minutes. The electronic base of many of the tracks, furthers the modern gothic standpoint as well as introducing pop and dance influences, but this is still undeniably a Metal album, albeit excitingly genre crossing and label defying.
Initially this album feels a little less immediately accessible than its predecessor too, but further listens unveil its depths gradually and the songs easily work their way into your consciousness effortlessly and almost surreptitiously. As I’ve said previously, I am a big Frederico Mondelli fan and really applaud the idea of not shoe-horning different styles into one band, much better if you have the capacity to spread them over multiple projects as he does so well. Mondelli is a seemingly endless well of musical expression, keeping all his bands fresh, but with cohesive qualities that draw fans of one of his bands easily into another. And as is in evidence once more here, this wealth of songwriting quality thankfully shows no signs of abating or wavering any time soon.
(8.5/10 Andy Barker)
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