Monday, September 9: Mastercastle, "Cradle of Stone"
As a subgenre, power metal began treading water around 1999 (maybe even earlier that, depending on how strongly any naysayer might feel), so the question for any group coming along after its last real peak wasn’t whether they had anything new to offer but rather how well they absorbed its conventions and how strong their sense of craft manifested in songs and performances. And on that level, Italy’s Mastercastle did fine on “Cradle of Stone”, even if the closing track on The Phoenix indicated that the group felt their name and artwork did most of the heavy lifting. Giorgia Gueglio’s vocals did the usual dramatic thing, though there was a little more hard rock mixed in with the bellowing, and the track itself was a bit more mid-paced even if everything still screamed power metal. Of course “Cradle of Stone” was total cheese, and could’ve easily been replaced by any other power metal tune by any power metal act, but on its own was perfectly fine.
