Skylark - Wings (2004)

As I've gone through the years of power metal so far, some bands have faded in my mind, and I've had to go back through this blog to remind myself what I've thought of them, while others I find hard to forget, and the former is not necessarily because they're bad, or the latter because they're good.
I've long been intrigued by Skylark, despite them bringing out so much mediocre material; there's just something about this Italian group that draws me in.
Well, with Wings, their first release in three years, they've brought out a real curio, and one knows this is going to be different right from the opening song, "Rainbow In The Dark". It's a ballad. At least until it picks up in the later part. How many metal bands start their albums with ballads and, what's more, how many of them record a ballad that's good? Skylark has done both here!
What follows results in what has to be one of the quietest power metal albums in existence. Every song has at least some slow parts, sometimes piano-led, mixed with quick patches, and with the first three tracks (the aforementioned "Rainbow", "Summer Of 2001" and "Another Reason To Believe"), it sounds like they're really onto something here - it's quite enchanting.
Then things start to go awry, not helped by the silly Belzebu character making a return. I'm yet to work out whether he's supposed to be Satan or not, but they're still running from him. The rest of the record isn't bad, but there's just something missing that the first three tracks had. And they finish with a cover of Def Leppard's "When Love and Hate Collide" which is, yes, a ballad.
It must be said the vocals (as usual, male and female shared) have improved to a degree, even if they're still not that great, and the album art is lovely.
This is a flawed piece of work, but it's such an admirable attempt at something different, I can't help but give it a reasonably high rating, and see it as Skylark's best record to date.
I'm certainly not giving up on them now.

***1/2