WATERLAND – Demo

What a wonderful thing, the Fantasy theme in Metal songs is. It sets your imagination to spread around and captivate your mind. You can go anywhere, or if you are really into the Power / Speed Metal race, you can fly anywhere or drive a Lamborghini to anywhere.

Waterland from Barcelos, Portugal was formed in 2007 and since then are speeding, loving and acting according to the Fantasy codes of Power Metal – beyond the stars and into the dragon’s mouth. However, they do it with more grace and especially, filling you up with tons of melodic verses that some of them will blow you away – How melodic can you be? Behind this side project / band, works Miguel Gomes, the lead / rhythm guitarist of the Symphonic Power Metal act, Oratory. Probably he wanted to write more stuff outside of Oratory so he started heading this project with the ex-vocalist of Oratory, Marco Alves and a friend, Bruno Gomes, to create a highly melodic piece of Power / Speed Metal. Waterland’s 2008 solid demo release is the first thing to come out from the project’s working hands and it clearly shows that racing out from reality can do you good sometimes.

Overall, when you listen to this release you will find mostly Power Metal catchy tunes with various elements from the Symphonic movement. For example, like the great use of the Keyboards, which in most songs, probably from bad demo mastering, rules them entirely and with that, weakening the great guitar work by Miguel Gomes. The vocals are also a factor here. Both vocalists, Bruno Gomes and Marco Alves, have that velvet, almost innocent tone of voice, which very much resembles Shaman’s and ex-Angra’s Andre Matos and the Italian Rhapsody Of Fire’s Fabio Lione. These two vocalists get the higher volume around the demo, which is quite good, because you can really hear first class vocals. As mentioned before, the guitars, except for the “wow” solos, are low volume, even if it’s a demo this factor should be considered.

Waterland, in their demo, presents several tunes, from hellish speedsters to balladic ones. Some of the songs are way past banal regarding music and themes. Themes can always be reproduced but the music sounds almost the same as other acts. Many Metal acts are doing the same stuff as others before them but you can always sense something new, if you listen closely, in each band. This release, in general, is a continuance of other bands and not original at all. However, Waterland can be proud of some of the songs because if they were well reproduced, they can be hits.

The best track around is “Shining World”, which sounds like a mix between Heavy Metal / Hard Rock and 80s Pop. All around there is the feeling of naiveté that is produced by Bruno Gomes’s soft approach.

The opener “Destiny” presents Power Metal stuff like Stratovarius and Rhapsody Of Fire with speedy drums and keyboard’s domination with great tunes. This track is yet another great job on vocals by Bruno Gomes.

“The Kingdom”, although being banal as hell, is quite good with great melodic verses and nice chorus. Here Marco Alves shows what he is capable of. “My Dark Light” is an emotive ballad, which suits well with Alves’ vocals. This number shows simple guitar work but a great solo. “The Key” is another banal Power / Speed Metal song but it’s ok. It provides good melodies from both guitar and keyboards. “The Man Who Wants To Be Free” is an almost exception, a very nice tune with a breakneck solo, partly Maidenish, and it also has several pace lines. The self titled track is another nice piece of work, the rhythm is to be expected and it won’t leave one amazed but the vocals take care of everything.

“History” is a great ending to this demo, somehow it reminds of the “Neverending Story” song from the 80s from the movie of the same name.

The continuance of Waterland would be a good deal for the Metal world, but the working souls should start working on something more original if they want to open a few more eyes. This is a solid start for them and they will prevail, eventually.