Band: EMERALD SHINE
Country: Czech Republic
Title: Misty Tales
Label: Independent
Year: 2018
Style: Folk Metal

Review:
After a 4 tracks debut EP released in 2016 Emerald Shine make their full-length debut with this Misty Tales album featuring no less than 11 tracks (one was featured on the EP, too) plus intro totaling almost 50 minutes of playing time. The music on it is a combination between Folk Metal and Symphonic Metal, or Fantasy Metal how the band would better call it, and to be honest that makes more sense since the lyrics are all about fantasy topics and also the music, because of the heavy use of harp and whistles sounds spot on for this label of their music. I have deeply enjoyed this album from start to finish, especially reading the lyrics while listening to it, I think this gave me a better angle on what the band tries to express here, nonetheless the compositions are all well-thought, complex, heavy and full of hidden elements to discover and enjoy. The only thing I couldn't get into, and where I still think the band has some work to do is the Progressive Metal influenced passages, those rhythms breaks that kind of diverted the attention from that enchanting atmosphere the band otherwise offers, but luckily those are only a few moments throughout this 50 minutes material, and also there could be a bit more polishing on the Extreme Metal screams and growls from my point of view. All in all this is a fantastic debut album from a seemingly very young band, self-released on professional, good looking digipak CD featuring an 12 pages booklet with lyrics and a double cover art that has an interesting story behind it (read the interview we did with the band). To definitely keep an eye on!
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 9/10

Contact:
facebook.com/emeraldshineofficial