Legendary Tales

Artist: Rhapsody
Label: Lmp
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 693723285627
EAN: 0693723285627
ASIN: B00002S82N

Release Date: 1999-11-23

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Listmania:

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Tracks:

Ira Tenax
Warrior Of Ice
Rage Of The Winter
Forest Of Unicorns
Flames Of Revenge
Virgin Skies
Land Of Immortals
Echoes Of Tradegy
Lord Of Thunder
Legendary Tales

Similar Items:

Symphony of Enchanted Lands
Power of the Dragon Flame
Rain of a Thousand Flames
Symphony of Enchanted Lands, Vol. 2: The Dark Secret
Dawn of Victory

Customer Reviews:

One of my favorite albums...but yes, it is cheesy........2005-09-13

It's true, and we, the fans of melodic metal, must accept that fact. So yes, it's cheesy. But SO WHAT?! What about all the good points? What about the talent? What about the consistency of good songs? I've had many fights with so called "metal-heads", who limit themselves to only "cookie monster vocal" death metal. Now, I have nothing against death metal. I'm a true metal fan. To me Metal is metal, or their heart was at least in the right place. Except in the case of hardcore or nu-metal, which we all know, sucks. I'm simply sick of people hating melodic metal because it dosent have "attitude", which is usually the case with certain metal fans disliking, or just saying that they dislike, "power metal". So they call it "gay", because they cant vent to it, after a hard day of getting beaten up at school. I blast this sh*t because it fu*king rocks! I dont care if it's about dragons or ice warriors, or whatever! I just care about the music! It's catchy as hell! Luca Turilli is an incredible guitar player, quite possibly one of the very best on the metal scene today, or ever. The galloping double bass never lets up, and Fabio Lione's vocals are great, very operatic, and he shows a good range (although sometimes using too much vibrato). Warrior of Ice, Land of Immortals, Flames of Revenge,and Lord of the Thunder are the highlight tracks. An excellent, very fast, very catchy, but sometimes very cheesy album. This one was actually the latest Rhapsody album I've gotten, and it solidified my opinion that they're one of my new favorite bands. I blast it with all my windows down, and I dont give a sh*t what jackasses are thinking. Why do certain "so-called" metal fans seem to care? Why are they so up tight? Isn't that what metal is all about? Just having fun, and not giving a fu*k what other people think? Correct me here. You know I'm right.

One of the best debuts ever?.......2005-06-13

Many bands often don't have a debut that shatters pre-existing notions about genres, but Rhapsody is a band that manages to do just that with its release of Legendary Tales. This band is one of the first to bring forth symphonic metal, and doing it right (sorry Symphony X, but Rhapsody is just more consistent and has much more ear-catching songs). The first regular length song to start blasting out is Warrior of Ice, and what a song it is. This song has epic written all over it, sporting some of the best uses of choirs seen in metal. The album continues rolling on to another great song, Rage of Winter. The album slows down with the nice song Forest of Unicorns, but then picks up pace again with Flames of Revenge. Land of Immortals is another great song, along with Lord of Thunder. However, the other songs aren't just filler material, and also stand out on their own. With great songs like these, it'd be ridiculous to dismiss this band, and as many have learned upon finding the band, their other releases do not disappoint either.

Coming from someone who's music collection boasts of over 40,000 songs spanning many genres, including some most people aren't likely to have heard of, and with experience singing & amateur song composition, Rhapsody is a band anyone who loves music can learn to appreciate, and this album is no exception. It is but one album of the Emerald Sword Saga.

Groundbreaking Debut.......2005-02-06

When this album came out, it turned heads upon the first listen. Bands like Helloween and Stratovarius had won the world over with its melodic speed/power metal, but none had ever attempted such a musical assault upon the dark ages as Rhapsody's debut managed.

Following in the footsteps of Helloween's "Invitation", Luca Turilli and company craft a brief, synthesized orchestration as its first track ("Ira Tenax"), which leads seamlessly into the album's official opener, "Warrior of Ice". The following two tracks would show the world Rhapsody's true compositional prowess. "Rage of the Winter" is a perfect symbiosis of metal and classical interludes, a pattern that would be repeated in the forthcoming albums and later become a Rhapsody staple. "Forest of Unicorns" exhibits the band's love for all things medieval, complete with flutes, harpsichords, and what sound like children singing. It isn't until the album's standout track, "Land of Immortals" that eyes start popping out and blood pressures start rising. Following this power-metal masterpiece, whose influences range from Yngwie Malmsteen to Mozart, listeners are given over to "Echoes of Tragedy", a menacing creation of impending doom. With a somber piano, a choir composed of operatic male bass singers and a rudimentary percussion set, it sounds as if the gods were speaking through distant thunder. "Lord of the Thunder" brings us back to the kingdom of power-metal, complete with bombastic drums, great guitar-work, and singer Fabio Leone's soaring voice.

I was not a metalhead at the time, but I can still appreciate this ground-breaking release even today. The forging of the elements is brilliant, if not corny. An amazing beginning to a genre-defining band.

See also: Rhapsody -Power of the Dragonflame, Rhapsody - Dawn of Victory, Rhapsody - Symphony of Enchanted Lands, Kamelot - The Fourth Legacy

Beginning of the Plastic Sword Saga.......2005-01-17

Really, this is only worth 4 stars if you can appreciate all things cheesy. This is, of course, funny stuff. Really, it's the kind of music where you don't want other people to know you're listening to it, but oh my is it fun!

This one has all the ingredients of your typical yngwie-inspired power metal-album: soaring guitars, high-pitched vocals, double-bass drumming, a lot of neoclassical stuff (essentially the sound of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, just way less complex) both on the keyboards and the guitars. And of course, trumpets and brass. Oh, how I loathe and love the sound of trumpets and brass on a keyboard. Cheese, cheese, cheese all the way!

If you've heard ANY rhapsody-material before, a song-by-song breakdown is pretty unnecessary as you'll know exactly what to expect. They really did benefit from the better production on their next album (not to mention their latest opus!) but Legendary Tales doesn't sound bad by any means, and the songwriting is solid and pretty diverse. It's just cheesy, REAL cheesy! And truth be told, since it's a metal album the guitars could use a little more 'oomph' here and there. This is more happy metal than heavy metal, but then again, they're singing about mystical lands and holy creatures, so Behemoth-like heavy guitars wouldn't really fit. We don't wanna scare our Warrior of Ice now, do we?

I have something to say.......2004-11-04

You know, there's something that really bugs me when I read music reviews around the internet. The term "power metal", and how some people consider it a silly/cheesy/gay genre.
can anyone tell me what is power metal? Can anyone give me a definition? Because most of the time when I ask people to define it they didn't know what to say. Or they said that it's metal music with a choir or a high-pitched vocalist, which is BS, because there are bands, who are considered power metal by most people, which do not have a high-pitched singer and don't use a choir for the most part.
So I came to the conclusion that most people can't define "power metal", and they call some bands "power metal" just because they read that's what those bands are, or they were told so.
And how come there are so many bands that some people consider to be power metal and some people don't? I've seen on the interent a lot of people calling Iron Maiden, Dio, Iced Earth, Blind Guardian and Rhapsody "power metal". Yet I also seen many people calling them "heavy metal" or "progressive metal".
I even saw on some review site a reviewer calling Metallica's black album power metal. So I came to the conclusion that people really can't define this so-called genre, or that every person's definition differs from the other person, because there is no clear definition!

The point I'm trying to make is that I really hate seeing quality bands like Rhapsody or Blind Guardian made fun of because they are known as power metal, which is often called a sissy/gay/silly genre.

Why do people have to put a label on everything and create so many stupid sub-genres? Can't we just call it metal? To me Blind Guardian are a metal band, that's it. and Rhapsody, they aren't really metal in my opinion, but they are a damn good and talented band who have their own unique sound.
And to me power metal is not a sub-genre, because I never read a definition of it that I agreed with. To me it's just a stupid term people came up with (like "grunge").

And one last thing, there are no bad musical genres, just bad bands. [I'm saying this in case someone gives you a CD and tells you, "listen to this band they are ...(input genre here)", and you listen to the CD and think it sucks and you think to yourself, "this is...(input genre here) ??? it sucks! I'm never gonna listen to this kind of music again".]

Oh and BTW this is a great album with some very powerful, uplifting and heroic music in it.

Music CD:

Music CD

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