Independent - 2022
5/10
Legendarium is an international act between The Netherlands and Italy, boasting a brand of heavy metal that’s certainly a mixed bag. Having an obvious leaning towards power metal, their aura consists of many fantastical themes and bright colors without leaning into it too hard. Their fourth effort (second this year), Death’s In Your Hands would seemingly be simple to pin down their sound based on the artwork itself. Obviously this is full of Blind Guardian and Gamma Ray nods, right?
Not quite. As a matter of fact, there’s a weird death metal element that sneaks its way into this. While you aren’t going to find any full-on guttural tracks, Legendarium almost exclusively flip-flops between aggressive songs that downtune the guitars, and bright, hope-filled songs that take on that old school power/speed direction. To make matters weirder, hints of goth rock get tossed in, with “Black Magic/Touch Of Evil” and “Immortal” almost nodding at Unto Others. It almost turns that “hope” element on its ass within itself. So when I say mixed bag, I’m being very literal. I have to give them credit for taking such a bold step.
But, sometimes two good things don’t mix well, and I wouldn’t say I love all of the delivery either. Swapping between crushing, aggressive riffs with harsher vocals and cleaner, traditional melodies is as jarring as it sounds. It doesn’t help that the vocal approaches themselves are unflattering regardless of the direction taken. The cleaner ones sound whinier and tired more often than not, while the harsh ones show too clearly a metal vocalist struggling to deliver throaty vocals. This isn’t to say that the music itself is terrible, because it really isn’t. In fact, the leads in “Aggripa” are strong, and the moments sprinkled throughout that focus on solos are a nice touch. But the inconsistency and rougher surface really makes this a struggle.
If all of Death’s In Your Hands took the power metal approach, I would probably like this a lot better. Even that isn’t anything great, but serviceable enough. The depressed flavors and tight guitars really boost those tracks, and if that replaced the attempts at aggression, I could see this growing on me. Unfortunately, there’s just a bit too much for me to overlook. I like chicken wings and I like ketchup, but I wouldn’t dip wings in ketchup. With that said, I almost think everyone should at least give it a spin just to see the ballsy move for themselves. Also, peep the hidden cover of The Misfits “Skulls” in the end.
Listen here -> Bandcamp
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