Band:	Orion Riders
Album:	A New Dawn
Style:	Symphonic power metal
Release date:	January 2004

01. In Memory
02. Whispers
03. A New Dawn
04. Leave The Shades Behind
05. Lacrimae Angeli
06. Light And Dark
07. Life's Best Days
08. Nocturne
09. Old Symphony
10. Life's Best Days [acoustic version] [Japanese bonus]

I know I have complained a lot about bad covers lately, so I think it's time to do the contrary now and praise a cover. And it's a cover that really worth it too.
This is one of the nicest cover I have ever seen, it's not so complicate, but it's very well done.
But as we all know, a nice cover don't automatically gives us a good album, even if the cover sometimes can play a quite big role.
And my first impression of Orion Riders wasn't to good, I have to say, I was quite disappointed, so nice cover and then the music wasn't what I had expected from them.
But that was my first impression, I shall return with my second and third one later.

The bass player Carmelo Siracusa and the guitar player Antonello Condorelli formed Orion Riders back in May 1997. Soon after did Tony Zappa, drums, and Davide Arcifa, guitar, and Vincenzo Di Stefano, vocals, join the band.
Then, inspired by bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Helloween, they started to promote their own music on Sicily. They recorded their first demo, "Brothers of Another Time" in 1999 and that got good reviews by the press.
In the same year Davide Arcifa (Guitar) was replaced by Riccardo Failla and the singer, Di Stefano was replaced by Alessandro De Grazia.
Their second demo, "Leave" was recorded in March 2000 and it was more progressive then the first one.
And then the singer, De Grazia left and Orion Riders found the very promising Joe Lombardo, and that line-up is still stabile today.
Recording of this album started in October 2002 and was finished in March 2003 and now, January 2004 it's going to be released through Lion Music.

So, after my first impression, that wasn't too good, something that came to my mind was a kind of "Poor man's Rhapsody" or something. I wanted more Power in the drums and some songs really needed some epic choir.
But when I have the album some more chances, I found out that the powerless drums aren't that powerless if you turn up the volume a bit.
And that the epic choir is there, in some songs, but that is something that I would like to have more of. (So if you read this, members of Orion Riders, more epic choir to the next album, ok?).

So my third impression, which came after the 5 or 6 listening, was that this album is really good.
Sure, many of you will say that it's not bringing anything new to our beloved Metal scene, no it don't, but please, tell me of some Power debut bands that does.
It's a question of talent these days; you can't go after if they bringing anything new, that's not going to hold.
Orion Riders have a long climb before getting some bit attention, but they surely got the talent to succeed.
But if we shall go back, and focusing on the album again, it's not an album that's change anything for me, like my taste of music or so, it's just an album I find quite joyful.

As I said, they have a long climb before people will discover them, and that might be the best for a band.
Because when bands get a lot of attention on their debut, they often have big problems to do a successor that will beat the debut.
Orion Riders have no pressure on them and can create their next album in anyway they like, and we all know that when the music comes from the heart in almost all cases sounds better then music that comes from the mind that want to earn money.

So, here we have a talent band from Italy, that's playing a Symphonic Power Metal that after some spins sounds quite good.
Does it sounds interesting? Well, check them up.

Favorite Songs: "Old Symphony", "A New Dawn" & "Light And Dark" is good, but the rest isn't bad either, hard one, as usual.