Operatic metal. Where there’s a crux for you. Anyone who listens opera might at one time wish he had it in him to compose and perform or record his own Don Giovanni. But then again, who never wished he played in AC Milan, or was the president of the USA. But soon reality settles in and you remain playing in FC Bierzoepers, be part of the local debating team, or record a operatic metal album.

The last option is the most annoying. Even more annoying than website reviewers who use their supposed position to burn down CDs without ever picking up a guitar. But even those douchebags (like me) would never presume to make an opera. As they know it would sound silly instead of impressive or presumptuous instead of pretentious. Nine out of ten attempts sound like a metal band with a nice little keyboard supporting them. Naming your band after some building you read about in a Dan Brown novel or something doesn’t fool the listener.

Or maybe it does. Probably, it does. Japanese pretenders Versailles throw a lot of ‘piano’ and ‘bombast’ in their mix of done-before metal. It never sounds like a piano, like a string-section, like horns of anything that can be heard whilst listening to an opera. It sounds daft and cheap, campy and tacky. It sounds like a fucking keyboard, like it always does, no matter the brilliant producer, no matter the pro-tools, no matter if it’s The Who’s ‘Tommy’ or some Dutch gothicrock excuse to be depressed in your teenage years. It all sounds equally silly.

I’m happy that these guys dream of composing their own masterpiece, but I’d advice them to cherish that dream and stop trying to fool us. It’s daft. Same goes for Ayreon, After Forever, Rhapsody and so on. Just play metal, or record a new approach to Vangelis. Goddamnit.