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GENGIS KHAN
Possessed By The Moon

Stormspell (2022)
Rating: 4.5/10

Damn, I really tried with this heap of glossy, melodic Italian trad-cum-Euro Goth power metal. Possessed By The Moon is the third full-length album from this clan of headbanging cavemen which dabble in fiery yet extremely modern-sounding heavy metal.

The whole feel about this album is Teutonic; a Germanic cold steel fury built upon the commanding vocals of Frank Leone and the whizzing axe attack of Mike Petrone and Neil Grotti, but it’s just all too darn nice in spite of its attempts to sound dark, brooding and mysterious.

The instruments, even with the niftiness of the guitar attack, feel lightweight and the band – probably due to the production values – just struggles to sound heavy, while the choruses, albeit rather corny, have that Euro-Goth feel but just seem restricted and lacking bombastic nuances.

This is evident in opening track ‘Possessed By The Wolf’ and hereon in. Lee Under’s keyboards are minor tinkles throughout and the drums of Gianni Lorenzeni seem lost, as does the bass of Leone, so what we get is a rather tepid power metal march through icy wastes that leave me cold.

The standard chest pounds of ‘In The Name Of Glory’ are just all too Eurovision for my liking, ‘Extreme Power’ just doesn’t live up to its title and exists as a clicky, speeding and above all watery thrash workout, and ‘Eternal Flame’ is a cheese-drenched ballad with tinkling piano, sweeping keys and not much else in spite of some eventual decent axe work.

The title track shows promise as a modern, angular rocker of jagged rhythms and ‘Sandman’ rattles with propensity and vim. Meanwhile, ‘The Wall Of Death’ is more standard galloping and ‘Long Live The Rebels’ is predictable war-torn hammering, but again, there’s just no weight to any of this, resulting in no conviction despite the snarling vocals.

Possessed By The Moon is a hard record to like just because of its angles and approach, because for every sizzling piece of axe work there’s that overtly clinical arrangement behind it, resulting in an album that falls short in most departments, especially the production.

The band members must surely have been aware of the lack of meatiness when they played this album back, or maybe they like that soulless design. A shame, because given the right team around them Gengis Khan could in fact be a rather steely and atmospheric act rather than just a pale imitation of cold power metal that melts within minutes.

Neil Arnold

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