Progressive and power metal are not strange bedfellows, the genres meld very well together and one band that does this very, very well are Beriedir and this year has the Italian band returning with a new studio album for the first time since 2018 with their latest album ‘Aqva’.
There is a mission statement immediately with ‘Aqva’ and that is to pull your face off with all the combined power of progressive and power metal. Not only will Beriedir pull your face off, but they’ll do it at breakneck speed in 5/4 time. ‘Aqva’ is a fast-paced album, thrashing machine gun powered guitars do endless battle with the fanfare of keyboards which blast with all the fun of those Euro-pop power metal sound. This does mean that tracks such as ‘Departure Song’, ‘Arkangelos’ and ‘Moonlight Requiem’ have all the enjoyability of Italian progressive/power metal such as Vision Divine, Labÿrinth and Secret Sphere coupled with the high-octane drive of later DragonForce as well as Power Quest or even Twilight Force. Furthermore, the track ‘The Dove and The Serpent’ is combined with the sort of lead rave keyboard riff that would make The Prodigy green with envy that they didn’t think of it.
‘Aqva’ is a solid album of progressive power metal, fans familiar with this sound will love it, ‘Aqva’ is very enjoyable with some really memorable tracks, there isn’t anything here which is unexpected and there doesn’t need to be, this album does what it needs to do, and it does it very well.
