Review OPERA DIABOLICUS ‘Death on a Pale Horse’

Fans of theatrical heavy metal will surely have heard it already. Opera Diabolicus have their second album in the pipeline and considering that the first album ‘1614’ was already released nine years ago certainly did not strengthen the hope that another opus would see daylight.

However. Adrian de Crow and David Gromoire strike for a second time and the name of their work this time is ‘Death on a Pale Horse’. The well-made horror-musical consists of nine chapters, i.e. songs, and offers almost an hour of melodic heavy metal and a lot of drama.

It is obvious that the two main protagonists can not create such a work on their own. That’s why they invited an illustrious number of guests to contribute to ‘Death o a Pale Horse’. The calls did not go unheard. Mats Levén, Snowy Shaw, Andy La Roque and Michael Denner are more than familiar names and together with many fellow musicians they have all put music to an impressive story.

To highlight single songs is not really useful in this context, because each of the new songs is a part of a whole concept. What can be said, however, is that especially Mats Levén’s voice is made for such an ambitious work. An important part is also that all the pieces reflect the story well, after all it is a metal musical. Here ‘Death on a Pale Horse’ has its strengths. Even if you don’t deal with the storyline concretely (it’s about witchcraft, plague and revenge), you can still recognize basic patterns and maybe put them together to an own imaginary story.

Death on a Pale Horse’ delivers theatrical heavy metal, which should delight especially fans of Candlemass and Mercyful Fate. If you like it a bit more bombastic, you will surely enjoy this album. This album is entertaining, has the necessary heaviness and pleases with well-considered melodies. And who says that musical and metal do not go together?