We chat to Philippe Giordana mastermind behind Fairyland

1.  If you were talking to a brand new listener, how would you describe your music?

Symphonic power metal with a touch of 70’s prog rock, the whole shebang being led by keyboards without downplaying the metal elements.

2. What or who most inspires you to play this type of music?

Mostly movie soundtracks, but also all kinds of rock, prog and metal bands. I’m not trying to copy anyone, though. I just write what comes to my mind at the moment.

3. What has been the reaction to your new album?

The new album received lots of positive reviews and was in general praised by both the public and the professionals. All in all, this is probably Fairyland’s most satisfying album so far.

4. What is the biggest inspiration for the new album?

Nothing in particular. The whole album is based on the concept Osyrhia written specifically for the purpose of composing about it. So Score to a new beginning feeds upon the concept as well as the old albums.

5. On that album what track are you personally most proud of? (i.e. which one do you feel has the most of you in it?)

There are two tracks that I’m particularly found of: Master of the Waves for its “in your face” value, and Score to a New Beginning because it gave me the opportunity to explore yet a new facet of Fairyland’s music.

6. What for you was your best tour/show?

We did two tours: one with Sonata Arctica and one with Kamelot and Leave’s Eyes. Both were great experiences, but so far the show I’m most satisfied with is the one we played on November 6^th 2009 in Italy, where we had Willdric Lievin as our sound tech and the sound was damn near perfect, not to mention the excellent performance by the musicians and Marco Sandron’s amazing live vocals.

7. If you could play with any band, who would it be?

Anyone nice and professional enough!

8. What is your best story about this band?(i.e. when touring, recording or writing)

My best memory was our first ever gig in Strasbourg in 2003. The guys of Sonata Arctica were waiting for us backstage right before the show, and encouraged us very kindly. They showed me the way any band should be acting towards less famous acts while touring together.

9. What’s next?

This year I’ll be working on the next album. I’m also going to try and have Fairyland on as many gigs as possible. Last but not least, Willdric and I are going to work on a major remix of Score to a new Beginning, re-recording the rhythmic guitars and giving the whole album a new dimension. I don’t know yet if we’ll release this remix as a Cd or a numeric release yet.

10. What is your most headbanging track?

Master of the waves, definitely!

Fairyland on myspace music

Mr Bogle

Sonata Arctica – Days Of Grays

If you like Sonata Arctica you will most likely dig this. Its not that it’s a particularly special album, as far as they go, but it “does the job”. Sonata Arctica have always appealed to me above other power metal bands for the degree of “grandiose control” they like to employ. While most bands will write an album of nine songs that try and make it sound like the world is ending and there are dragons out your window, with maybe a token uber-gay slow song played on an acoustic guitar as an “interlude”, Sonata tend to employ a slightly more diverse, introspective range of song, going with many moods not normally seen in power metal.

In this aspect, Days of Grays is really quite standard Sonata, with a unique songwriting aesthetic and quite large variation of moods. However, although it does weave around the place like this, there aren’t really any particular stand out moments, songs to join the ranks of previous classics like “Fullmoon”, “The End Of This Chapter” and “The Cage”. Indeed the entire thing holds together like a concept album, every song following on from the last smoothly, creating a great sense of coherency. As an entire piece, it’s very impressive, but the individual songs are rather meritless. Just put it on and let it flow.

There are some impressive vocals here, as always, with Toni Kakko’s impressive range, but most of the other instruments, synth excluded, are taking a much more minor role. Guitar is less prominent than on any of their other works, the band as are whole seem to be making that regrettable move into “symphonic metal”, where a power metal band spends too long listening to prog, and forgets that they are not, in fact, a symphony orchestra. Hopefully they will go no further.

6/10

Eyelicker