VELVET THUNDER

Artaban’s Redemption is a new joint Spanish and Italian power metal project that was put together in 2020 with Broken Puppets being the band’s debut which is a neat EP of 5 tracks for 29-minutes of very entertaining power metal.

The band was put together by Alvaro Weik (Unbound) and he then brought in singer Ivan Giannini (Vision Divine, Derdian), bassist Francesco Ferrar (Freedom Call, Vexillum), drummer Roberto Cappa (Dark Moor) with keyboardist Elena Alonso (Lethargus) and so these are musicians who obviously know a thing or two about power metal. Ambitiously, they have released a concept EP which is set in the future and concerns how robots with AI are treated by their human masters when the units are at the end of their useful lives. Now, I guess you do not need to be a major sci-fi fan to guess that this is a story that is going to end well for the human race! Maybe this is a story that the band will pick up again when they get round to releasing a full length album as 5 songs is not enough to tell any sort of complex tale but it is enough to shown a new and intriguing power metal band in the development stages.

The publicity mentions Gamma Ray, Stratovarius, Running Wild and Edguy but the band has more in common with Freedom Call due to the clever and incisive harmonies they show throughout the material and and there is more than a hint of orchestral symphonic metal about their delivery too. Wonderful drums, great vocals and some very strong songs but it could, perhaps, have done with just a little more guitar in the mix but there is more than enough here make the debut a most anticipated release.