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POWER QUEST
Camden Underworld, London August 25 2003
Wow! Three power metal bands on one bill and just five pounds! Of the
three I had heard Intense and Power Quest (their debut album of last year,
'Wings Of Forever' was one of the best metal debuts for many a year) and
was looking forward to hearing Mercury Rain, who have had good reviews and
feedback on various websites/magazines.
Decent sized crowd for a Bank Holiday Monday but there was still room
for more! Mercury Rain are a female fronted power metal act and they played
a decent set. Plenty of riffs and solos as you'd expect, plus a very strong
sounding drummer. The only drawback was that I couldn't really make out the
vocals above the guitars/drums but a sound set nonetheless.
Next up Intense, who batter you with a wall of guitars from the off and
played some new songs of their forthcoming album. New song 'War Of Angels'
sounded very good, the other newie was a slower, brooding number (can't
remember the title!) that will feature keys on the album version. Of the
'older' tunes, 'Dark Season' was the pick of the bunch with its riffs
overload and a very intense (no pun intended!) sound, with vocalist Sean
Hetherington very suited to this style of metal. Looking forward to their
album when it gets a release later this year.
It's amazing Power Quest made this gig as they lost one of their
guitarists at the last minute plus they had a new drummer, Gavin Ward, who
has only joined the band in the past month. As a result with one guitar
down some of the songs were missing extra guitar parts, but Andrea
Martongelli did a more than admirable job, plus adding harmony vocals as
well. Superb run through 'Wings Of Forever' and vocalist Alessio Garavello
came into his own on 'Beyond The Stars'. Of the two new numbers, both sound
very good on first listen with one of them sounding not unlike Ten as it
has a heavy melodic rock feel. Closing with the anthem, 'Far Away' (hear
the MP3 on www.powerquest.com and www.getreadytorock.com) it marked a fine
end to a great evening of metal.
Text © 2003 Jason Ritchie
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