Tarot (Fin) - Crows Fly Black

Tarot (Fin) - Crows Fly Black

Tarot is a band traditions reaching back to the early 80s, and have over the years released numerous albums to much critical praise. But it wasn't until the band's front man, singer and bass player Marco Hietala joined Nightwish things were really made huge for the band. Marco has an amazing and very distinct voice, and thankfully he's been able to combine his work with both Tarot and Nightwish in a satisfactory manner. 2004 saw the release of Tarot's Suffer Our Pleasures, and now the follow-up, Crows Fly Black, is ready.

The genre Tarot operate in is pretty straight forward heavy metal, based around strong riffs, groove and catchy chorus-lines. Suffer Our Pleasures had some excellent songs, but suffered a bit due to lack of variation. Rest assured, Crows Fly Black takes the band to new heights, managing to side-step almost every booby trap put in their way. The album's opener, being the title track, took a while to grow on me, but as soon as I got there I was hooked. Other excellent songs to notice are Traitor, Bleeding Dust, You and Grey, but overall there are no particularly weak moments to mention. One thing I appreciate very much is the band's ability to vary the tempo of the songs, this is a clear improvement from Suffer Our Pleasures. The songs evolve, progress and skip rope hither and thither in between different parts, creating new and exciting moments many times in each song. The production is excellent, Marco's powerful and gritty voice is mixed in perfectly with the hard hitting guitars and bass.

One important thing to note is that this album is a sure grower, I doubt you'll get instantly hooked. But as you start to notice the little things, the guitar licks, the layers of synth in the backgroun and the sometimes almost unnoticeable tempo-changes, I'm pretty sure you'll get around to loving it. Mostly for lovers of Marco's voice, lovers of classic heavy metal or good melodies in general, but I really do recommend it to almost anyone. Give it a chance. This one'll be released the 19th of January, so Tarot has together with Therion's latest given us one hell of a start for the new metal year.

Rating: 85/100

Written by Ole Kristian Mastadøy at http://www.enslavedbymetal.com/

Heavy Metal, Finland
Full-length, King Foo Entertainment
October 27th, 2006

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