Risen Crow – For A Damned Love
Release Date: 28th February 2025
Label: Rockshots Records
Order/Stream
Genre: Power Metal, Gothic Metal.
FFO: Temperance, Frozen Crown, Kalidia, Visions of Atlantis, Gloryhammer.
Review By: Mark Waight
Italian power metal band Risen Crow are relatively new players in the game (only formed in 2021), but it certainly doesn’t show in their supercharged debut album “Requiem For A Damned Love.”
Following many of their contemporaries by using a blend of sing-along male and female vocals, they slot very nicely into this unique niche! This is the kind of music that will enthral and engage a live audience the whole world over.
Risen Crow is Antonella Della Monica (vocals), Claudio Vattone (vocals), Giuseppe Longo (guitar), Francesco Menale (guitar), Alessandro Bernabei (keyboards), Flavio Cicchetti (bass) and Filippo Martini (drums).
Kicking things off with a statement of intent, “Never Surrender” slowly builds that pure power metal fury to fever pitch with epic twin guitars and dual vocals. Next up, “Black Widow” is a classic darker, heavier metal way of storytelling which urges you to step up and participate.
Gothic ‘n’ black track “Funeral Jack” with its weeping and disturbing laughter is one of my favourite songs on the album, allowing us to get a taste of the darker side of Risen Crow, and I like it. I really hope this is an avenue they explore much further.
Self-named song “Risen Crow” introduces us to the whole band in all its shining metal glory, and following track “Revelation” is just that as it demonstrates what a tight unit Risen Crow are.
The lovely piano introduction to “Dark In My Life” makes way for a much harder hitting and much bleaker song with deeply engrained and emotional vocals. This is most definitely my favourite track bar none!
Don’t “Believe In Me” when I tell you that “Requiem For The Damned Love” is a darn good album, check it out for yourself. You, too, will find it so absorbing that almost in the blink of an eye you arrive at the final song “Black Rose” which brings down the curtain with cinematic and poetic perfection.
“Requiem For A Damned Love” is definitely one of those albums where your fondness for it will continue to grow over time with each and every listen! If you are a big fan of power metal, then “Requiem For A Damned Love” will tick every box for you by delivering eight solid tracks of the very finest of its kind available. There are no cross-genre ventures here, it is what it is, Power Metal pure and simple, with Risen Crow hitting that sweet spot time and time again throughout.
With music craft aplenty, Risen Crow have enough quality to stand out from the crowd in what is a very busy field and attract themselves a few more followers into the fold along the way. Well worth a spin!
(4 / 5)
