Dangerous Diamonds 2011

"Mastercastle is an Italian power metal-oriented band, and this fact might make some people cringe at the prospect of load upon loaf of cheese. Well, fear not, because Mastercastle's "Dangerous Diamonds" is happily free of cheesiness, as the main focus is on strong guitar riffs and powerful vocals.

Stylistically, Mastercastle draw both on power metal and on more traditional heavy metal as well as more melodic metal/hard rock, which means that you can expect the big and catchy chorus-lines that are so characteristic of power metal, but Mastecastle generally operate with slower tempos than typical Euro-power metal and pretty much avoid the uptempo double bass drum patterns of Euro-power metal, instead drawing on classic metal riffs, groovy riffs, and melodic hard rock riffs, and this actually works incredibly well in generating a melodic, broadly appealing, yet hard rocking, album.

Vocalist Giorgia Gueglio has a very clear and clean voice, but her singing is also very powerful and she can really belt out some catchy vocal lines, and she is just the type of female vocalist that I appreciate in metal music. In general, the musicianship is very high, and not only are the riffs strong and hard rocking, the guitar solos are blazing and very technical and impressive – and very enjoyable to listen to.

Dangerous Diamonds is a very well put together melodic metal album which should appeal to fans of melodic hard rock, classic metal and power metal alike... oh, and fans of awesome guitar playing.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)"