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This interview is done by Claudio "Italianpowerfan" Guidi but we have the permission to use it to spread the word about Steel Seal's new album 'Redemption Denied'.
Hello Marco, it's good to see you again! Let's start with a question about the band: which is the new line-up of Steel Seal?
Hi Claudio, it's always a pleasure to meet you! Our line-up is half the same of the first album, with Luca Iovieno still on drums and me playing lead guitar again, and half new, 'cause we have now Roberto Fasciani on bass guitar and Adriano Rossi on keyboards: both of them were on our 'Demo 2003', and Adriano gave us a hand also on 'By The Power Of Thunder', so it's a bit like going back to our past days... the reunion of the old gang! As on our debut album with DC Cooper, this time too the vocal parts have been performed by a special guest: we're talking about Thomas Vikström, who definitely doesn't need any introductions - he has worked with Candlemass, Stormwind, Brazen Abbot, Therion, ecc. - and did an excellent job on the ten new tracks.
And which additional musicians did collaborate with you on the new album “Redemption Denied”?
We had Fabio Bernardi, who was part of the band on the first album, to play all basic keyboards, Lorenzo Milone, a young and very talented guitarist, to play the solos on six tracks, our pre-production engineer Marco Ronci on sitar and the Italian vocalist Val Shieldon to duet with Thomas on a song and to perform backing vocals on several other tracks... nice reinforcement troops indeed, I think! Val Shieldon has worked with Sigma and Oracle Sun and his involvement in “Call To Roll” makes it a real two-part rock song reminding the listeners of some outstanding Purple songs of the Coverdale-Hughes era.
Do you feel completely satisfied with the just recorded new album?
Yes, totally. I'm really proud of the new album, it satisfies me under every respect. I know that's a routine answer in an interview, but this time it's absolutely true: we're really dealing with a great melodic metal album!
How would you define the new album in one word?
Exciting! It sounds powerful and energetic, very tense and rich in emotional charge, brilliant in the instrumental parts, intense and profound in the lyrics, and the excellent production enhances its original qualities: a very good piece of work indeed, in my opinion.
What kind of music is the one in 'Redemption Denied'?
It's 100% Steel Seal music: forceful contemporary power metal mixed with traditional hard rock, with great melodies and nice inserts of classical music. The same components of the first album, but melted in a different way with a different final result.
And what about the lyrics? Are they of the same kind of the ones in the first album?
Yes, also this time the lyrics, with the exception of a couple of songs written by myself, are generally inspired to rhymes of well-known poets and novelists, so that our tracks can have soulful and significant lyrics - something much different from the usual ones that don't have so much to say other than talking about fast cars, girls and parties, you know. Though, I don't think that people listen to the words of a rock song, unfortunately. I mean, our first album had lyrics of high quality but among its many and many reviews only a couple touched on this subject, and if it is so for the reviewers you can imagine what happens with the common listeners... I think that what generally comes first to the people's ears is the sound of the words of a song, not their meaning; then, there's surely somebody who listens to the lyrics with curiosity and attention, and that's why I go on with this kind of lyrics although it takes me so long to write them, but I'm afraid we're talking about a little minority.
How do you consider the new album in comparison with 'By The Power Of Thunder'?
As I said before, there's a substantial continuity from our first album to the new one 'cause both of them are made up of the same components: what changes is only the proportion of the parts. In my opinion, 'Redemption Denied' sounds more direct and aggressive, more “Viking”, so to speak, while 'By The Power of Thunder' was more classic and orchestral: a bit like the balance had moved from hard rock to power metal, you know. But this is only my personal opinion, things may well sound different to other people and, anyway, I really love both the albums to the same extent, they are the excellent results of different phases of our creativity.
Which is your favourite song of the new album?
Errrr, that's a good question! I'm listening to the master recordings almost every day and each time I notice something new, something different that impresses me. At the beginning I liked best “Victory In Black”, then I preferred “Time Stood Still”, then “Evening Star”, and after all “Nevermore” is a great metal ballad and “Holy Thursday”, “Lord Of The Flies” and “As Darkness Falls” three mid-tempos each one better than the other... At present I think that my choice could be for “Burn The Sky”, but I have to say that all the songs are very good and almost each of them has been selected as the best one by some of the people who have listened to the album. This means that, as on “By The Power Of Thunder”, the average quality of the tracks is very high: there are no fillers beside leading songs and all the tracks sound equally great, it's a bit like an album of the '70s, where all the songs were expected to be good.
Does the title 'Redemption Denied' have any particular meanings?
Well, the title has been chosen first of all because it sounds good, and then as a sort of answer to some preconceived and gratuitous adverse criticism we had for 'By The Power Of Thunder' – you know, people that without any regard to the songs depreciated the album because of the musical genre, as if Steel Seal had to redeem themselves from the original sin to play melodic metal. All right, our answer to this kind of subjects is sorry, we need no redemption or forgiveness and we'll keep on kicking your ass with power metal and hard rock melted in one white-hot steel casting!
OK, Marco, let's end with a question about your expectations: how do you think that people will react to the new album?
To judge from the reactions of those who listened to the master recordings so far, I'm almost sure that people will like “Redemption Denied” very much, even more than our debut album, and that it will make happy our long time fans and will win over plenty of new ones! And most of all I hope that the listeners, as soon as the album ends, could feel like playing it over and over again: I think it's the greatest award that a musician can be given for his work. Bye, Claudio, see you after the release of the album! All the best to everybody and keep on rocking!
Interviewed by Claudio Guidi |
