Search - Wingdom :: Reality

The Melodic Metal Truth

Reijo Piippula | Turku, Finland | 08/31/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Wingdom is a new melodic heavy metal band from Finland. Its music is very much like Dream Theater except the lyrics are much more Christian. It's music is beautiful and strong like melodic metal should be. You can say that they play very well...they have some famous names...like Alessandro Lotta in bass guitar (you may know him from the band Rhapsody) and Mikko Harkin in keyboards (have you heard Sonata Arctica's Silence???). They play together with Jukka Ruotsalainen (guitar), Markus Niemispelto (drums), and Sami Asp (vocals). It is great always to get gospel metal...there's not too much of that stuff. The songs like "Time", "Where Do We Go?", "Marionette", "A Sigh of Despair", "The Essence" represent the great direction melodic heavy metal has now. I have to say that I really love Dream Theater's "Images And Words"...if I hadn't known I would have thought that this is Dream Theater. The album has such gret moments like "Never Stop" which makes me think God's loyality and love he has for us. "Lighthouse" parts 1&2 are quite sad songs but I guess that they are warning examples. Wingdom defintely continues the same true gospel metal music Stryper was starting. I also love the female background vocals by Mona Fredricksson in some songs...especailly in the song "A Sigh of Despair". It worked in Queensrÿche's "Operation: Mindcrime" and it works in here. Unfortunately...it seems that this album will never be as famous as "Images And Words" or "Operation: Mindcrime". It's hard to be successful if you live in Finland which is far from USA and quite far away from UK. Nightwish and Stratovarius may be the biggest-selling melodic metal bands we will ever have. I hope I'm wrong.

Stars: Lighthouse, A Sigh of Despair, Time"