PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Power metal is a genre where it is easy to sound like every other band trying to make it in this genre and making your music 110% cheesier than any other type of metal music. Emerald Sun is such a band and the moment you put their latest album on, you will say to yourself… “Boring, I have heard this all before”. Everything is sped up to point of hyper speed, there is a guitar lick/solo every couple of seconds; it’s your basic, bog standard power metal album. The only thing that makes Emerald Sun’s new album, Regeneration any good is the cover of ‘Holding out for a Hero’ by Bonnie Tyler and even that is a predictable song choice for a power metal band.
Similar to the same ilk of bands like Power Quest, Blind Guardian, Arryan path and Pathfinder, Emerald Sun are a band who want to make their music as fast as possible, whilst being as melodic and catchy as possible; making them generic and standard for a power metal band. 
Songs like ‘Theater of Pain’, ‘Where Angels Fly’ and ‘Starchild’ manage to lose the interest of the listener as the 500bpm charge fest of these so called power metal anthems go from fast to even faster in a failed attempt to wow the listener with their wannabe guitar wizardry.
What to say about lead vocalist Stelios Tsakrides. Well for a start he is what actually makes this record seem somewhat decent. He has such a diverse voice which really carries across in songs such as ‘We Won’t Fall’, ‘Planet Metal’ and ‘Fantasmagoria’, soaring like an eagle with his high pitched vocal cry. He is such a good vocalist and his voice really suits power metal and it’s t a real shame that the songs on Regeneration don’t do his voice any justice.
Finally, the cover that Emerald Sun have chosen to end this rather mediocre album on is ‘Holding out for a Hero’ which although does sound awesome rocked up to 11, really is a predictable choice for a cover. Another excuse for the guitar section of Emerald Sun to play till their fingers fall off, this song really does show how cheesy power metal can get, and when power metal gets too cheesy it can get rather irritating. The cover does work and it is musically stimulating (appose to the rest of the album) but this song really does put the cheese on the cracker!
Regeneration is such a hard album to stomach and although at points, individual members of the band get their time to shine, the outcome is a ten track album that is drowned out by a hell of a lot of super speed filler. [5/10]
