Many bands would give their eye teeth to release a disc sounding as vibrant and special as does this one.
Question: what should a band/project do when their four previous releases available as free downloads fail to make a sufficient mark? The answer presented by the epic power metal quartet from Marseilles in the south of France is to release an MCD of outstanding anthemic music in the vein of bands such as Hammerfall, Stratovarius and Rhapsody Of Fire and have it mastered at Finnvox Studio by Mikka Jussula – so that it also sounds like a million dollars! It is inconceivable that they will be without a label deal for much longer ...
There are many bands that would give their eye teeth to release a disc sounding as vibrant and special as does this one, but some of them would also wish to write songs that have the immediacy, melody and charm of the ones presented on (the admittedly rather clumsily titled) 'Rise, Legions Of Free Men'. You'd think that Galderia had been around for years, but the reality is that they have only been in existence since September 2006. They have released four CDs digitally: EP 'The Starlord' and album 'Out Of Control' in 2008 followed by MCD 'Puissance et Unité' and album 'Royaume De L'Universalité' in 2009. Despite the French titles of the latter two releases, all but one of the individual tracks are titled in English, and are presumably sung thus: certainly the ones I have sampled are, and indicate a band that previously had something of a Helloween fixation.
The members of Galderia – Seb (founder member: guitars, vocals), Tom (guitars, backing vocals), Verdo (bass) and Jo (drums) – also have a fixation with the Cosmos, the Power Of Universality and of the perceptions of David Icke, but I am not inclined to want to hold that against them! Indeed, the first six tracks here (the seventh is for some reason 'hidden' and details are not provided: but is a brief acoustic ballad) are linked and tell of the awakening of mankind, their battle against an illusory world and of a growing awareness that the planet of Galderia is the true source of the spirit of mankind (or something like that!!) You may call this philosophical concept 'hokum pokum', but such mystical/mythical stuff is frequently the preserve of the power metal genre and when it all sounds as fantastic as this with its imposing choruses and overblown, pompous melodies and assured ensemble then it is surely worth further investigation ...
Paul Jerome Smith
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