Every time I receive a new Heavy Metal release from Italy, I cannot help but face-palming myself, and groaning. As you may know, I have expressed a certain dislike for Italian Heavy Metal releases as I personally think that Italy + Heavy Metal are two things which do not really work.. The only genre that seems to work for them is Folk and Power Metal, as combined these two genres can work for this country (see my VEXILLUM review for more info). As much as I may have a dislike for Italian Heavy Metal, I'm always open to hearing new music in this genre from them as there may be one band from Italy out there which does Heavy Metal correctly.

Anyway, that's enough ranting, as it's time to get on with the review and the subject for this is "Steal the Fire" from Italian Epic Power Metal band DARKING. Formed in 2005 in Piombino (Livorno), Tuscany in Italy, this quintet of Italian Metal musicians released a demo in 2009, followed by their first full length album "Sons of Steel" in 2010. Now it's taken them five years to release their second effort, and that's the subject for this review.

One thing that does worry me about this is the long track lengths. As I'm sure you know, because I have explained it many-a-times, that some bands can often fall into traps of writing long songs that sound dull and boring, which will probably make you fall asleep or switch off the music and play something else to wake yourself up. I know I usually list complaints a bit later on in my reviews but this time I need to start off with a complaint and that is, DARKING have fallen into that trap.

Despite being a band from Italy who specialize in "Epic Power Metal", I'm just not feeling that in the music. I guess it has to do with the way it sounds as the band are inspired by 80's Heavy Metal music, and it's clear they've made their music sound just like an old school 1980's Metal album. In this day and age, this is a bad idea as the production on it may have been allowed back then but not today as there are bands which may be inspired by classic music, but they still manage to make their music sound crisp, clean, and modern. This band are just not one of them I am afraid. The long lengths of the songs are also an issue, because, as well as the production, which sounds a bit retro and a bit cheap with the occasional moment where it sounds, okay I guess, but overall it just sounds very dull and boring. There is plenty I could rant about but I will not for the sake of repetitiveness so I'll end it there.

Overall, I wasn't really that impressed with "Steal the Fire" by DARKING, and I will continue to host my doubts about Italian Heavy Metal until the day a band can come along and cast aside those doubts by producing a good Italian Heavy Metal album that doesn't sound boring or cheap. I mean you may like this album but I for one do not, it's not something I really enjoyed.