Band:	Mastercastle
Album:	Enfer (De La Bibliothèque Nationale)
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	October 2014

01. The Castle
02. Let Me Out
03. Naked
04. Pirates
05. Enfer
06. Straight To The Bone
07. Throne Of Time
08. Behind The Veil
09. Venice
10. Coming Bach [instrumental]
11. Cat-House [digipack bonus]
12. Alone [digipack bonus]

Mastercastle have been toiling away like a band of industrial German octopuses, this being their fifth album in six years. Impressive, granted, but like a multi-story minefield, sometimes too much of a questionable thing can blow up in your face.

Initially, I passed up the opportunity to review this album; I found the music video for "Enfer" so thoroughly unremarkable that I could not compose a sufficiently lengthy description. After watching it sit untouched for months on end, I reneged and decided to give it a fair go, but it seems that my initial impression was accurate. As you have no doubt guessed from the name, Mastercastle is a power metal venture, and as you have no doubt guessed from the rating, Mastercastle is a generic power metal venture. After the surprisingly passable first two songs, Enfer De La Bibliothéque Nationale peters out into recycled riffs and flat choruses

Guitarist Pier Gonella lives a secret double life as the axeman for another Italian group, notorious blackened thrashers Necrodeath, and given that band's love for its own back catalogue, it comes as no surprise that a heap of these riffs smell suspiciously similar to each other. He shows himself to be a surprisingly accomplished neoclassical guitarist as well, but occasional lightspeed scales bounded by nondescript hard rock riffs do not a noteworthy power metal album make. His approach is comparable to that of Yngwie Malmsteen - throw incredible solos at the wall and see if any of them congeal into memorable pieces of music. I have always wondered how it is that a musician so incredibly talented at playing music could encounter such difficulty in writing it.

Vocalist Giorgia Gueglio's performance here falls short of previous albums. While she has never possessed the same full-bodied power or technical skill of other vocalists in the field, she could usually keep abreast of Mastercastle's material. Her earnest and unadorned delivery cuts across well enough when used properly and limited to simpler song structures, but a band aiming for neoclassical street cred can sometimes ask too much. On songs like "Enfer" and "Straight To The Bone," she struggles to project the necessary energy and confidence, and they fizzle out meekly. "Behind The Veil" is a largely vocal-driven song, and while she pushes through it without an overage of consternation, someone like Tarja Turunen could make the song truly shine.

"Coming Bach," a fascinating instrumental, ends the album on a high note, but it hardly veils the generic wasteland that precedes it. Repeated listens improve the experience, yet at the end I am still tempted to seek my power metal fix elsewhere. Mastercastle have had their ups and downs, all albums toeing the line between "good" and "average," and I'm afraid this one just doesn't quite cut it; but they have proven capable of succeeding in the past, and at this rate they should have another album out shortly.