{"id":93735,"date":"2022-05-27T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=93735"},"modified":"2022-06-07T15:44:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T14:44:37","slug":"album-review-gengis-khan-possessed-by-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-gengis-khan-possessed-by-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"GENGIS KHAN – Possessed By The Moon (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

GENGIS KHAN
Possessed By The Moon<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nStormspell (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 4.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Damn, I really tried with this heap of glossy, melodic Italian trad-cum-Euro Goth power metal. Possessed By The Moon<\/em> is the third full-length album from this clan of headbanging cavemen which dabble in fiery yet extremely modern-sounding heavy metal.<\/p>\n

The whole feel about this album is Teutonic; a Germanic cold steel fury built upon the commanding vocals of Frank Leone and the whizzing axe attack of Mike Petrone and Neil Grotti, but it\u2019s just all too darn nice in spite of its attempts to sound dark, brooding and mysterious.<\/p>\n

The instruments, even with the niftiness of the guitar attack, feel lightweight and the band \u2013 probably due to the production values \u2013 just struggles to sound heavy, while the choruses, albeit rather corny, have that Euro-Goth feel but just seem restricted and lacking bombastic nuances.<\/p>\n

This is evident in opening track \u2018Possessed By The Wolf\u2019 and hereon in. Lee Under\u2019s keyboards are minor tinkles throughout and the drums of Gianni Lorenzeni seem lost, as does the bass of Leone, so what we get is a rather tepid power metal march through icy wastes that leave me cold.<\/p>\n

The standard chest pounds of \u2018In The Name Of Glory\u2019 are just all too Eurovision for my liking, \u2018Extreme Power\u2019 just doesn\u2019t live up to its title and exists as a clicky, speeding and above all watery thrash workout, and \u2018Eternal Flame\u2019 is a cheese-drenched ballad with tinkling piano, sweeping keys and not much else in spite of some eventual decent axe work.<\/p>\n

The title track shows promise as a modern, angular rocker of jagged rhythms and \u2018Sandman\u2019 rattles with propensity and vim. Meanwhile, \u2018The Wall Of Death\u2019 is more standard galloping and \u2018Long Live The Rebels\u2019 is predictable war-torn hammering, but again, there\u2019s just no weight to any of this, resulting in no conviction despite the snarling vocals.<\/p>\n

Possessed By The Moon<\/em> is a hard record to like just because of its angles and approach, because for every sizzling piece of axe work there\u2019s that overtly clinical arrangement behind it, resulting in an album that falls short in most departments, especially the production.<\/p>\n

The band members must surely have been aware of the lack of meatiness when they played this album back, or maybe they like that soulless design. A shame, because given the right team around them Gengis Khan could in fact be a rather steely and atmospheric act rather than just a pale imitation of cold power metal that melts within minutes.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENGIS KHANPossessed By The Moon Stormspell (2022)Rating: 4.5\/10 Damn, I really tried with this heap of glossy, melodic Italian trad-cum-Euro Goth power metal. Possessed By The Moon is the third full-length album from this clan of headbanging cavemen which dabble in fiery yet extremely modern-sounding heavy metal. The whole feel about this album is Teutonic; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4819],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-gengis-khan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93735"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93741,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93735\/revisions\/93741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}