Lord Bane - Age of Elegance [1994]

Lord Bane's Age of Elegance is one of those cult prog "classics" that doesn't deserve its warm recognition in any way. All the elements are there: an extremely small press run so that it won't get heard by enough people to exploit it for the garbage it really is, an endearing musical direction people will find themselves attached to for no real reason, and a vocalist that, at times, manages to channel the greatness of Midnight. However, this is not Crimson Glory; let me make that painfully clear. Lord Bane lacks almost everything that made Crimson Glory such a great progressive power metal band. First of all, the power. Age of Elegance is plagued by slow, prodding songs that lack any projection or heaviness. In fact, most of them barely even reach mid-pace, the worst offender being the ridiculously overlong "If Broken Hearts Could Kill (You'd Be Dead)." It's not the only one, either; even the decent songs often stretch to seven minutes or longer, and the music here just isn't suited for that. In simpler terms, the main problem with this album is that it's just boring. The absolutely terrible muffled production job certainly doesn't do it any favors, either.

If you're not familiar with the aforementioned Midnight, then you are one sorry individual and you are in dire need of Crimson Glory's first two releases. His legendary vocals were characterized by a thick thespian accent and mesmerizing, glass-breaking highs. Lord Bane's Shawn Ames is almost capable of at least imitating him, but aside from "Queen Ann", he never really does. He just stays in his aggravating comfort zone for most of the album, which is mid-range with a scratchy, thespian-gone-wrong tone in his voice. The talent is there, but he puts forth no effort whatsoever. He goes hand-in-hand with the band itself, because they do the same thing. The music is so limited and restrained, taking a slow walk on a road that always leads to nowhere. There are approximately two real "power metal" songs here, and guess what? Those are probably a couple of the worst tracks on the album. "Like the Lion" is completely average in every way, with a chorus that is so boring and uninspired it's almost a shame calling it one. "Promise of Prophecy" is terrible, however, with an apparently inept sense of melody that prevents one from ever remembering anything from it. This has to be the least memorable song I recall hearing, as even now I couldn't tell you a thing about it.

There aren't many actual tracks here (which is probably a blessing), making it kind of inappropriate calling so many of them "one of the worst", but that's how I'd have to describe them. The first and last are pretentious short pieces, trying to put off some grand epic atmosphere that ends up a joke (further worsened by the transparent title choice of Age of Elegance). The seven tracks crammed between them range from awful to relatively decent, and I've already named off the worst so let's focus on the few bright spots. True opener "Fawns" is okay, even if it is hampered by the horrible production job and nonsensical, artsy lyrics. I must admit that the slow verse has some charm and the vocals are pretty good. A couple of bad songs later, we hit "Moriah", one of those extremely sslllloooooowwww songs (if you see my point), except I actually like this one. I think it's aided by the dark atmosphere and the looming, if simple, chorus. Finally, there's the album's highlight, "Queen Ann", a good, hell, maybe even great song. Good vocals, a sense of coherency, and finally some actually decent songwriting grace this single flash of potential, the way the whole album should have worked out. Sadly, it didn't. Don't waste your time or money with this. Just stick with Crimson Glory.

   Overall: 3.5/10 (Bad)