Great promotion but average music - A review of Armored Dawn's "Power of Warrior"

Brazilian power metal Armored Dawn sextet surely knows a lot about music business and how to promote its material. The band's first promotional EP was released with numerous rock and metal magazines from all around the world. Pretty much any metal fan who occasionally buys this type of magazine and who hasn't lived under a rock in the second half of last year should be familiar with this band by now. As if that weren't enough, the band is playing shows all around the globe with veteran acts such as Fates Warning and Sabaton. In addition to this, this release even features collaborations with household names such as Mario Ian and Fabio Lione. If I had to give an award for best promotion of a rock or metal band last year, I would surely give it to this band.

While Armored Dawn's promotional efforts are spectacular, the music itself is standard melodic power metal with epic keyboard arrangements and cheesy lyrics about pirates, vikings and the likes that should please fans of groups such as Angra, Gloryhammer, Holy Knights, Magic Kingdom and Rhapsody of Fire. This EP is a nice addition to an extended collection of faithful melodic power metal fans and features four well-crafted tracks that have their moments. On the other side, this band doesn't have an own identity at all and sounds like a weaker copy of the numerous bands mentioned above. Even though I have listened to this EP numerous times and given this release a whopping four additional spins prior to writing down my thoughts, there isn't one of the four songs that managed to get stuck on my mind or to stand out in any way. Sure, there is an emotional guitar solo here or an epic symphonic overture there but as a whole, the four songs are lacking depth and sound quite exchangeable to me. Even the invited vocalists only manage to grab my attention for about a minute because the song they are featured in is quite bland. The band's song writing is rather amateurish. The group might have some outstanding motivation for the kind of music it plays but the sextet is simply lacking creativity, experience and skills in the song writing department.

In the end, it seems to me as if the promotion made much ado about nothing. With such a massive promotional strategy, I would have either expected a truly self-confident and convincing release or something quite courageous that adds something fresh to a genre has failed to evolve properly for the past ten years or so. That isn't the case though. Armored Dawn offer solid but ultimately forgettable standard melodic power metal with an epic note that you will forget about as soon as you have finished listening to this output. Passion alone isn't enough here because of the considerable flaws in the song writing department. Armored Dawn's "Power of Warrior" doesn't have much to do with power or a warrior and this promotional release didn't make me want to check out their debut release.

Final rating: 60%