The influences of Minuetum are clear – Firewind, Iron Maiden, Vision Divine, Stratovarius... anyway, you get the idea. Unfortunately it’s little more than these influences that emerge from “Eternal Twilight”. There are a few good ideas but the band seems over-attached to a handful of melodies and appears reluctant to expand beyond them.

“Eternal Twilight” was produced by Bob Katsonis – keyboardist and guitarist of melodic powerhouse Firewind. Bob also provides the axe-work of this album and the level of solos he usually displays with Firewind are transposed more or less intact with this ‘new’ band. I’m not all that convinced, however, of the production he has done for these co-nationals.

Another major problem of this album is the weak diction of the vocals, being also severely limited in range. Generally the riffs cry out for a stronger punch and the keyboards are downright mediocre. Having said that, there are a few keyboard bits - such as the intro to ‘Key To Glory’ and the instrumental ‘Sky Minuet’ – that are so much better in quality that I strongly suspect Mr Katsonis has had more than the production to do with them.