(Rivel Records) Total Time: 47:45
ORATORIO is a band that hails from Finland and was formed somewhere in 1998. To be honest, after listening to their debut album ”Reality Of Existence“, I decided to give them a second chance, due to the fact that in this album, they convinced me that they had the potential to expand their music horizons and evolve their sound more in the future. But their second effort, “REDEMPTION”, totally disappointed me. In this album nothing seems to have changed. Everything is the same, their line-up, their style, their level of inspiration e.t.c. For those who don’t know, ORATORIO is something like a mixture of Iron Maiden, Metallica and Stratovarius. Nothing more, nothing less. But, don’t hurry up, the final result is not as good as it sounds. ORATORIO is one of those million mediocre bands that the only thing they know to do perfectly is to repeat million-played riffs, million-sung choruses and million-played solos. I, many times, caught myself saying: “Where the hell have I heard it before?”…Ok, I agree that in their first steps, Metallica and Iron Maiden, also stole many riffs from Saxon or U.F.O. But, in this case such comparisons are completely useless. ORATORIO has nothing new to add, nothing that seems to push things further. The only remarkable points are, besides their great technique, the very good sound production and some nice acoustic parts between the electric ones, but this is not enough to make the whole boring result more interesting.
Only for family and close friends (that, by the way, might feel proud to claim that they know a guy that plays in a band…Wow!!!).
