Scelerata The Sniper (2012)

The band Scelerata might be alien to you, but two guest singers Paul Di’Anno and Andi Deris,this should get your attention well. Home base in Brazil, Scelerata already gone through ten years of history of heavy metal music, as mentioned on their website. Before the release of today’s album “The Sniper” the band already pulled out two discs. They are rather all around heavy metal with majority fall in power metal feel. As heard straightaway on first track Rising Sun, Scelerata storm the audients with blazing double drumming and shredding melodious guitars attack. In My Blood which followed next, received bit of Helloween influence and the song gone half foot into power metal. Both song featured Paul Di’Anno of earlier Iron Maiden fame. We also introduced to singer Fabio Juan who sing very clean tenor range. The guitar solos diminished any doubt on the band’s capability to produced technically difficult aesthetic music.

Road To Death opened with thrash feel chromatic licks ala Megadeth. It’s unavoidable to listen bits of  Megadeth and Metallica influence in the middle of song’s interlude, so Scelerata actually travel far into thrash feel too. What blended to this concept is the vocal still in clean high pitch screaming voice. Breaking the Chains offer another interesting traditional heavy metal feel. The song rely much on Fabio Juan’s power vibrato and emulated the ‘80s era, something like Rob Rock character. For Unmasking Lies, Scelerata provide power metal open string licks and the song gone straight to the style’s minor mood. Not forget is the epic feel chorus ala Avantasia here.

Turn of the event is Andy Deris’ guest song, Must Be Dreaming, which is… very Helloween scale. I must say this song favourite to me for its almost Master of the Ring feel. Not stopped there, Drowned in Madness , is neo classical intro, Welcome Home, Till The Day We Day all gone bits of Helloween feel. The last piece of Scelerata music closed with nine minutes epic The Sniper. As the length suggested this song required progressive structural composition to survive, this is Scelerata last job in providing us awesome package of one hour music.

Produced, mixed and mastered by Charlie Bauerfiend  who, unsurprisingly also Helloween’s partner, we will much at home with the quality of sound. Scelerata seems put brave decision to sounds their music closed to their influences. Notable is the singer who perform fantastic job in bringing clean metallic voices. The band did not bring in important usage of keyboard (except in The Sniper) , neither influenced of Brazilian music as in Angra. So, we still saved from folk metal here. To close this review, it’s a recommended album for Helloween fans as well general melodic metal crowd.

Metalharem class: ******** eight stars out of ten

Scelerata The Sniper 2012
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01. Rising Sun [feat. Paul Di'Anno]
02. In My Blood [feat. Paul Di'Anno]
03. Road To Death
04. Breaking The Chains
05. Unmasking Lies
06. Must Be Dreaming [feat. Andi Deris]
07. Drowned In Madness
08. Welcome Home
09. 'Til The Day We Die
10. Money Painted Red
11. The Sniper
12. Leave Me Alone [live] [Japanese bonus]
13. The Spell of Time [live] [Japanese bonus]

Fabio Juan - vocals
Magnus Wichmann - guitar
Renato Osorio - guitar
Francis Cassol - drums
Gustavo Strapazon - bass

Guest musicians
Andi Deris - vocals
Paul Di'Anno - vocals

Additional info
Produced by Charlie Bauerfiend (Motörhead, Helloween, Blind Guardian, Halford, Angra, Rage) and Renato Osorio.

Graphical artwork for cover album: