These Italians confused me at first. Grabbing the CD I witnessed a dark, avant-garde cover artwork with gloomy colors; the mystery was not solved, looking at the fierce track titles. Labeled as 'Power Metal', BEJELIT's new work raised my curiosity high enough prior to the disc's first spin. Many things cleared out after half a dozen of auditions, though. Can't judge a book by the cover all the time, remember?

BEJELIT's music is dark and quite emotional, even if this is not obvious from the very first time you'll listen to their new album. Yeap, you can classify them as being a Heavy/Power Metal act but this is not all you can get by such a brief description. "You Die And I..." is an album featuring a unique character by this Italian band; BEJELIT's been around for ten years now and had already released a couple of earlier CDs prior to this 2010 album. Have not listened to a single second of both of them, nut I promise I'll look forward to these recordings, too, since...

...the style offered in "You Die And I..." is everything the disenchanted Heavy/Power Metal fan can wish for. Based on a melodic recipe as instructed by e.g. RAGE or (little of) GAMMA RAY , but also boasting an evil atmosphere with eerie/frozen keys and leads like in e.g. late KING DIAMOND or STRATOVARIUS works and neoclassical severe parts bringing to mind the lunacy of e.g. ROUGH SILK, resulting in - along with the Italian DNA of Metal bands (think of ATHENA or LABYRINTH) - a quite encouraging result if you feel fed up with the Teutonic or 'candy' Power Metal made in Europe the last decade. The whole atmosphere is a balanced typhoon of Scandinavian, German and Mediterranean Metal elements filtered through the quintet's own philosophy of songmaking (the drummer provides the keys parts, too...yeah!) and in something less than 50 minutes you'll hopefully feel the freshness of a sonic attack not based on speed and/or extremity but owing a lot to the hard work this band put in the making of this new CD; the songs are complete, no fillers are present, the production is quite good - being full here and like a razor there - plus all the musicians here preserve a high level not only in terms of technique but mainly due to their non-stop search for a 'unique' output. The couple-chorus-couple-chorus-solo-chorus patterns is rejected here, but eventually most of the songs end up to be quite memory friendly. And that's a big "thumps up!" secret of success for BEJELIT.

Looking at the lyrics themes the cover artwork and track title mystery was quite unlocked; the texts are pretty flourishing, with enough reference to the human's own demons, inner searches, beliefs, personal hopes and dreams. The piano and strings arrangements, in more mild moments, offer a lot in crating a relevant atmosphere, too, promising you won't spoil a minute while caught in "You Die And I..."'s web. Spiritually speaking, BEJELIT has a progressive way of building up a song based on its melodies. To be honest, though, I think no precise labeling can apply to the Italian band's taste. "You Die And I..." is one of the albums that - I think - can test your stamina against the 'new' and 'different' you cry for the last years.