Grimlord - Dolce Vita Sath An As

This review has been a longo time coming; put on the back-burner for other reviews and such but every time I tried to write about it it felt like it was indescribable.
Grimlord’s sound comes betwixt power-metal with thrash leanings and the mythological or somewhat demonic subject matter in the vein of old school metal acts like Iron Maiden. Instrumentally, Grimlord is tight with excellent guitar work and powerful riffs accompanying soaring vocals around the chorus of title track ‘Dolce Vita Sath Ans As’. It all comes together to great effect, but something was alwas odd about Grimlord. Not necessarily bad, but ‘off’.

Singer Barth la Picard’s technique is good when considered inline with the music, alternately operatic and brutal as generic tradition dictates, but in its more subdued moments his polish accent comes through  a tad strong. After a few listens thus isn’t such a big deal, much like the ‘engrish’ heard in J-Rock bands like Dir En Grey and Maximum the Hormone who are both fairly coarse and heavy vocally with the former showing impressive range.

The point here is that clarity or even language barriers don’t stand in the way of talent or enjoyment though admittedly the band would be a lot more accessible if the lyrics were a tad clearer. Others have said that this album comes through more like a demo than a full release though with such rich production the vocals are the only short fall.