Fool's Game and their debut album,
Reality Divine, seemingly emerged out of nowhere in 2009; the melodic brand of eclectic heavy metal contained within is defined by the confidence, maturity, and wide-ranging experiences that converged into its at-once classic and surprising compositions. Classic because the bulk of these musical ingredients can be traced to traditional heavy metal recorded with a sparkling clarity typical of the '80s (in the best possible sense), yet surprising because of the band's simultaneous flirtation with harsher extreme metal styles, abundant synthesizers, and an almost miraculous evasion of most any power metal trappings (which have long dominated and dulled most melody-friendly metal). In fact, power metal only comes to mind on a few cuts like "The Conqueror Worm" (via its gang choruses) and "As the Field of Dreams Was Abandoned" (which approaches a speed-metal clip), and
Fool's Game generally stick to midtempos and allow lead vocalist Lars F. Larsen (also of
Manticora) to carry the load himself (the latter is especially justified since he's capable of hitting those high notes as well as
Ripper Owens, Matthew Barlow, or that Halford guy). Other tracks, like opener "Mass Psychosis," "When the Beginning Meets the End," and the typically dramatic "As She Moved Through the Fair" feature busier percussive assaults and surprising death metal-style vocal growls tucked discreetly behind the more prominent melodic vocals, while their overall complexity and imaginative synthesizer counterpoints threaten to open up the gates to progressive metal and the numerous additional dimensions of sound that it entails. But the band always seem to step away from the brink of indulgence at the very last moment, and were it not for a few deficient tunes where their performance and production don't quite gel ("Sowing Dead Seeds," "The Wild Swans at Coole"),
Fool's Game would be sitting on a candidate for traditional metal album of 2009 with
Reality Divine. Not bad for a first try. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia