Brief Introduction into the ways of Van Canto for the uninitiated readers out there:
Van Canto is a six piece German a capella ensemble power metal band - yes a cappella – and apart from a real drummer all other instrumentation (guitars, bass, synths etc) is preformed vocally by the “Rakkatakka” vocalists.
Fun Fact: I actually had a very similar idea one drunken night in a pub many moons ago but then discovered this lot had already done it… gits!
Having formed in 2006 they originally came to prominence through their performance of metal cover versions, the most notable ones being ‘Battery’ (Metallica), ‘Wishmaster’ (Nightwish) and ‘Kings Of Metal’ (Manowar) however what could have been passed off as gimmicky novelty act has evolved into a bone fide respected metal band because (A) they perform it bloody well and (B) can actually write really good original songs.
So anyway here we are with album number FIVE Dawn Of The Brave which contains thirteen tracks of predominantly original material.
So let’s deal with the elephant in the room first and talk about the cover versions. The press release sold it as only having two covers, one of ‘Paranoid’ (Black Sabbath obviously) which is preformed pretty much straight and another of ‘The Final Countdown’ (Europe) which is given an orchestral flavour (it actually sounds a lot like Laibach’s cover of the same song).
However it transpires there are in fact another two covers hiding in the running order and are both interesting curveballs, ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ (Bonny Tyler!) in which the female vocalist takes the lead (she even does a Bonny style rasp) is metal-ed up a touch and pretty much brilliant! All the more interestingly though is ‘Into The West (Annie Lennox – ‘Lord Of The Rings Soundtrack’) which is performed as a full group harmony and is starkly beautiful.
Which leaves this album with 9 original tracks to stand on, So to rewind back to the very beginning and they open proceedings with an a cappella take on the big grandiose orchestral intros metal bands love to employ and its surprisingly super effective and leads into the fist pumping power metal of ‘Fight For Your Life’ with its dual male and female vocals providing anthemic choruses and the guitarists up-tempo “RIFF”.
Far from being a novelty item the “guitarist” have a superb eye to detail as ably demonstrated on the triplet RIFFING on ‘To The Mountains’ which is another female led anthemic power metal anthem.
In fact the original songs traverse most aspects of power metal so as well as more fist pumping anthems like the lead single ‘Badaboom’ (note: watch the music video as it’s class) there is also classic rock/Judas Priest worship on ‘Steel Breaker’ a nod to operatic symphonic metal on ‘The Awakening’ and of course no power metal album could be complete without a power ballad as we get on ‘The Other Ones’.
The concept around the album is supposedly based on superheroes so it’s fair to say Van Canto have “Leveled Up” and as you can tell I love it and so “Rakka-Takka, Motherfucker!”
