A while ago I mentioned in a review a certain sound that most Metal bands from Italy have. Well if one wanted an up-to-date example, they can just listen to NHORIZON. A line in their press release goes ...the guideline of this album? Dreams, every kind.... This line of poor grammar will give you an idea with what to expect from this album.

NHORIZON was formed in 2004. They released a demo in 2007 and Skydancers is their debut album, released through My Kingdom Music.

As mentioned earlier, one pretty much knows what to expect when dealing with these Italian bands. NHORIZON one-ups them by adding annoying pointless keyboards all over the place. The lyrics are weak and the vocals are the typical nasally singing of these types of bands. At least they are not as bad as RHAPSODY OF FIRE.

That being said, things start off rather decently with The Skydancer. Sadly, this is where the innovation ends and most of the rest is just more-of-the-same. And those keyboards...ugh. Fabrizio needs to listen to some of Ken Hensley's work to learn the role of the keyboards in heavy music. I should mention that there are some decent guitar solos included, although the riffs are pretty generic. The drums are pretty good though, they expand out further than just typical patterns and rhythms, which is especially commendable considering that many other drummers in this scene think that it's OK to use the same drum patterns and lines throughout each and every song.

Is this worth it for the average Metal fan? Nah, probably not. Fans of the Italian Metal scene might want to check it out, but there are so many other, better, Italian bands out there like PATHOSRAY and ASHENT. That being said, this is only NHORIZON's first album so maybe they will take advantage of the opportunity to improve on future albums.