Epic Symphonic Fantasy Power Metal is apparently the musical direction the Finnish band CHAMELION has opted to go for. Well, when the classical sounding introduction “The Conquest” begins, it certainly directs every listener that way. What I have here is actually the debut album, and somehow the band have convinced Rockshots Records to give them a chance. And they complied. The result is “Legends & Lores”. What immediately draws my attention is the beautiful cover. It has me looking forward to hearing about epic battles and old legends.

The first real song, "Hero's Tale", has a bit of an early CHILDREN OF BODOM feel, mainly due to pace of the song. But as it is very Melodic, you will also hear early RHAPSODY coming through. These two songs together give me good hope that I will be enjoying this journey with CHAMELION. When “The Shadowleader” starts playing and the nervous guitar playing rears its ugly head, is when I start to feel uneasy. This is almost over the top busy, the band have simply crammed too much per second into the song. You will not get a breather. Thankfully the pace has dropped considerably for “Faith And Steel”, but unfortunately it is a very boring song. It has no body, no substance. And it is very, very predictable. You can feel what is going to be played from a distance.

And that, alas, is how “Legends & Lores” continues. The slower songs just don’t grab you, seem a bit lacklustre and meaningless. I feel that getting the lyrics across has been made more important than playing exciting music. On the faster songs, it is the other way around. Here CHAMELION is constantly trying to play faster than the speed of light, drowning the lyrics completely. The result of all these efforts is that I am very disappointed with “Legends & Lores”. And I shouldn’t have to be.

If CHAMELION would have chosen the middle path within the songs, with outbursts two the mellow as well as the heavy/fast side, the songs would have had more to give, more to offer. Now I feel they are just empty shells. And I find that a great pity, because it is very obvious that the potential is there within CHAMELION. This makes “Legends & Lores” into a very disappointing album that could have been a lot better. Let’s end on a positive note: the production is outstanding