Fairyland - Of Wars In Osyrhia (2003)

I've made no secret of how much I love Freedom Call, but it's hard to deny that calling their debut album STAIRWAY TO FAIRYLAND sounded a bit lame. So when a band comes along called Fairyland, it certainly gives ammunition to those power metal detractors who label it "gay metal" and suchlike.
But who cares? :)
Fairyland is a French band created by keyboardist Philippe Giorda, and this debut is overwhelmingly symphonic. Has their ever been a metal album that has less prominent guitars? They're there, but are certainly secondary to everything else on offer. Even the six-minute instrumental, "The Army Of The White Mountains", is completely symphonic - no guitars.
Accompanying this landscape of instrumental wonderland is a choir of sonuous male vocals throughout, and to complete the musical picture is the leading voice of Dark Moor's Elisa Martin.
*sigh* I like Dark Moor, but there's no denying Martin is not the greatest vocalist on the planet. I'm not saying Giorda had to go with one of the operatic ones (although Sabine Edelsbacher would have been nice), but couldn't he have found someone a bit better?
I won't let that view get in the way though. In truth, this is quite a breathtaking listen at times, with obvious nods to Rhapsody, although with less variety, the haunting vocals singing graceful tunes to consistently fast rhythms, with lyrics of the expected fantasy variety.
"Ride With The Sun" was actually one of the first power metal songs I ever heard (thank you, YouTube), so it gets part of the credit for my passion for the genre now, and it's certainly enchanting, but so are such pieces as "Rebirth", "The Fellowship" and the concluding, eleven-minute title song.
In some ways, it seems like Fairyland are doing little that is new here (even in 2003), but they still manage a sound that is just theirs and, even with a singer I find hard to adore, they have produced a record that is endlessly captivating.

****1/2