AGE OF TAURUS appeared in the metal scene five years ago with their first album “Desperate Souls Of Tortured Times”, a solid, flawless album of massive doom metal with some 70’s references. Yet time goes by and AoT lost their momentum, however they endured the hardships of music industry. And so the new album “The Colony Slain” is out and ready to take on the world.
To be really honest, the first listening of “The Colony Slain” was a little bit confusing, since the only thing that kept me from believing that this is the new ARGUS album was Toby Wright‘s vocals. And no, you haven’t read wrong: the new album is shifting towards classic metal: the sound is less sluggish with more melodies, lots of twing guitar leads and a heavy N.W.O.B.H.M. essence. With more rock-ish choruses “The Colony Slain” embodies the best elements of late 70’s – early 80’s metal. It’s a marching parade of riffs, leads, a couple of celtic themes that will remind you of THIN LIZZY, WITCHFINDER GENERAL, WITCHFYNDE, early IRON MAIDEN and early CLOVEN HOOF. Yet AGE OF TAURUS are elusive enough to avoid degenerating themselves to mere copycats. The songwriting is massive, inspired and exciting. The epic lyrics combined with the majestic, nostalgic epic feeling of the music create an dreamy atmosphere that reminded me of the latest QUICKSAND DREAM album, and bred pictures of Robert Howard‘s stories to my mind.
The only drawback of the album is the vocals. Although they seem to fit right in mr. Wright’s voice is not powerful enough. At some point they sound very thin and feeble and don’t serve the overall outcome. Yet, rendition is quite dramatic and sentimental and balances this frailty.
To sum up, I’d say that “The Colony Slain” is a great album. It’s full of fresh ideas, hard work and love for heavy metal. Don’t miss it.
