Christopher Lee - Charlemagne The Omens Of Death (2013)

What is this you asked? Well, legendary actor Christopher Lee already a familiar voices in metal. Together with Rhapsody of Fire and Manowar he told us stories about heroes and dragons as a guest narrator on those band's albums. Seeing this as new outlet for his talent, Sir Christopher pulled off his own creation. In 2010 album Charlemagne By The Sword and the Cross surprised metal fans. Although that absolutely generic symphonic metal copied by the maestro, the album did went quite well in marketing. So who to blame when a 'sequel' is released this year. 2013 Charlemagne The Omens Of Death is the title, marked Sir Christopher 91th anniversary  and is a collaboration with Richie Faulkner, who replaced KK Downing of Judas Priest fame. The guitar idol champion Hedras Ramos was hired to fill in the six string shoe. Unlike the debut, The Omens of Death switch to heavy metal sounds, in lieu to symphonic metal. Although Sir Christopher marketed this as heavy metal the true is this is majority power metal album with significant orchestration.

First, let us congratulate Sir Christo for his blessed, prosperous, adventurous 91st birthday. More over for this album since he again has a nice fun jamming with personalities of heavy metal world. For a quick start, the album comes with good music. The review is obvious, those tracks narrated by Sir Christo, and less sung by him, are the best one. We got the introduction The Portent, where narration is good and instrumental take the song afterward. The first half of album need listener to deal with Sir Christo's invented 'genre', since he brave himself singing baritone in all these tracks. Mostly are operatic story driven power metal song. Intro, riffs and musics are good, the vocal is in his own 'genre'. Just like what in a movie, the intense and excitement only grow more from each track to the end. Started from The Betrayal , the music actually turns good now. The best track is The Devil's Advocate. We can heard how the backing musicians works hard to cover Sir Christopher. The last two tracks, The Ultimate Sacrifice and Judgement Day do close the album with good metal tunes. The Ultimate Sacrifice is sung by guest vocalist and of course the last one is instrumental track!

One luckiest dude in the project is surely guitarist Hedras Ramos. This album almost like a solo for him, and actually his guitar works is what keep the album stay interesting. If you like history then The Omens of Death can be followed as the story gone almost too historical. With power metal as backing music, this album did better than the debut. The cheesiness of symphonic metal can be trimmed 40-50% by the music set in this album. Well, let's take this as a tribute for the great actor, Christopher Lee. The fame of Lord of the Ring, Star War and Dracula sure can bring metal music closer to mainstream. For now let's hope Sir to remains as narrator for more metal project.

Metal Harem class: ******* seven stars out of ten

Christopher Lee - Charlemagne The Omens Of Death (2013)
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01. The Portent (4:29)
02. Charles The Great (6:23)
03. The Siege (7:09)
04. Massacre Of The Saxons (5:41)
05. Dawning Of A New Age (4:40)
06. Let Legend Mark Me As The King (5:45)
07. The Betrayal (5:02)
08. The Devil's Advocate (4:54)
09. The Ultimate Sacrifice (5:09)
10. Judgement Day (3:41)

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ - vocals
Hedras Ramos Jr - guitars
Hedras Ramos Sr - bass
Ollie Usiskin - drums
Richie Faulkner - arranger

Christopher Lee Charlemagne The Omens of Death album review