Music labeled Prog/Power and origin from the southern parts of Europe normally doesn't make it to the top of my list. The Italian version of Power Metal in general is very cheesy and wimpy and there's nothing good about that. Of course there are exceptions. On occasions RAISING FEAR actually falls under that rule of omission. "Eternal Creed" can be divided in two reviews really, the pure Power Metal songs which quite lack substance, perhaps not cheesy but not interesting either. The ordinary riffs with a semi-poppy chorus line. Just only half decent but perhaps, if you really dig that part of this genre I'm sure RAISING FEAR will fit right into taste. But that's not at all my cup of tea.

The other part, the more mid-tempo Progressive songs are something completely different. These songs have a completely different substance and dynamic to them. "The Power To The Eye" and "Amon Ra" for example. They both incorporate great heavy riffs and cool melodies. There's no question about RAISING FEAR's instrumental skills, there's some really innovating playing on "Eternal Creed". Frank Rider and Alberto Toniolo does a great job onthe guitars and Frank Della Frera's voice suites well to both the Progressive and more Power oriented songs, maybe he's not possessing the strongest voice in the genre, it could absolutely be worse and I kind of like it when it's not all perfect. But sometimes his pronunciation of the words gets too hysteric. English with a bad Italian accent doesn't describe it, it's just barely English words sometimes. These types of flosses can he all from hilarious via embarrassing to just annoying. It can be ok though, even a little charming every now and then. But one really cool thing with bands that don't have English as their native tongue is the phrasing and choice of words. Perhaps it isn't English in the correct manors but sometimes it gets very poetic and interesting even if it's not intentionally. Frank do get away with it most of the time but when the tempo is turned down, as in "You Belong To Me" it gets a little too much. Unfortunate really because it's a good song!
Then there are a few right in the middle as well, first track of the album (apart from the intro) "The Chosen One" has some oomph in it but it's still a quite bleak copy of what HELLOWEEN has been doing for years.

What I really like about the album is that even if there's nothing new about the songs and style it feels honest, creative and a bit naïve. It feels like the songs come from the heart, nothing studied to fit in to a certain genre. At least for the major part of the album, the Power Metal songs are so much weaker and, if not copies, at least heavily influenced by other bands. And then of course also because it's a really good band behind it.

The downside is the length of both the songs and the album. In a way it was better when the limitation (of an LP) was around 40-50 minutes. Here almost all songs clocks in on over five or even over six minutes and then 11 songs (+ the "Eternal Creed" Intro), that's a little bit too much to keep my interest up for the entire record.