Feanor is an Argentinian power metal band, with three prior albums.  The band has been kicking the power metal glory around since the 90’s and their last album We Are Heavy Metal – well how much more metal can you get from that?  It’s a damn fine piece of power metal too.  Catchy and well played.  Their fourth and newest, Power of the Chosen One, sees the band going even more epic this time around with an album run time over 60 minutes.

“Rise of the Dragon” opens the album with a nice little eagle swoop-in phase effect before the thunderous double pass and power metal speed comes to launch you off a castle.  Sven D’Anna has a set of booming pipes and the chorus is incredible.  If you’re not singing “Fight, Fight, Dragon Rise”, by the end of this song then I will question your metalness!  Guitars are meaty and have an excellent tone to them.  Drums are thunderous, well played for power metal and the bass guitar is audible and nicely mixed in.  Excellent guitar solos and the soloing has an early Helloween flair to them.  If that’s not a bonus then what is?  This opening song is thrilling, especially if you’re a power metal fan, like myself, or even Steve “I catch bigger fish than you” or quite possibly James “The master of alphabetizing discog collections” Mays.

I have not done one of these in a while, but Anatomy of A Song is where a song is such a banger then I need to mention it quite specifically and that goes out to the title track, the second song on the album.  “Power of the Chosen One” quite possibly could end up being my favorite song of the year.  The chorus, which I do not mind, is repeated quite a lot of times: “By The Power of The Chosen One, The Sacrifice of Your Life, We Stand By Your Side, Hail, Hail Hail”.  Well, the chorus opens the song and then goes into a classic mid-paced Iron Maiden speed and the bass guitar has Steve Harris’ bass tone all over this one.  The song has a great rhythm section and has melody and the main guitar riff mixed with that chorus…damn it I just wear my battle vest and started a 1 man pit all over the dining room table.  It was disastrous.  Excellent dual vocal melodies and damn I cannot tell you how much I love this song and chorus.  It is beyond catchy.  Excellent guitar soloing and towards the end, with the isolated moments of just the chorus being sung and drums and then the music joining in – it’s metal perfection and crafted beautifully.

“Hell Is Waiting” starts with an excellent speed metal riff and the riffing is fast, while the song is slower.  Crazy vocal ranges and sounding spot on – the solos are all over the place on this one.  Terrific, many Helloween homages to this style.  “This You Can Trust” is a nice fast power metal number with thunderous drums and nice depth to the vocals on this one.  The album closes with the mighty and epic “The Return of the Metal King (The Odyssey in 9 Parts)”.  At over 19 minutes you’d better have that goblet of mead on hand for this sucker.  The song starts melodic, epic and slow with the vocals and music.  The song has some light atmospheric soloing going on, equipped with acoustic guitar action.  Then after about 4 minutes the fast part comes on with the awesome chorus and hell yeah it’s over the top.  It’s power metal, it has to be.  I am very impressed at how long this fast part goes on for, as it’s over 4 minutes of thunderous and fast power metal.  The song then gets into more atmospherics, slower and mid-paced moments.  It really is a wonderful display of all the grandiose elements Feanor does so well.

Dude and Dudettes…………just look at the album cover.  It screams EPIC!  The warrior with his gargantuan eagle/falcon.  They’re ready to slay some dragons, grab some wenches and then do it all over in the morning.  Power of the Chosen One has an excellent production.  It sounds BIG and Massive.  Over the top and epic moments mixed with a lot of power to their metal, Feanor has released their finest hour.  So many catchy moments, whether it’s the vocals or musical arrangements, it’s enthralling.  If you’re into German power metal of yore, or even more obscure power metal bands like: Lonewolf or Arrayan Path you will love this.  This album rules!!

[Visit the band's website]

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