| Artist: | Mentaur |
| Title: | Darkness Before Dawn |
| Label: | Cyclops CYCL 033 |
| Length(s): | 74 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1996 |
| Month of review: | 01/1997 |
| 1) | Day Of Wrath | 15.00 90 |
| 2) | Imperiatrix | 5.55 |
| 3) | Silver Snakes | 4.00 |
| 4) | Cracks | 4.24 |
| 5) | Rainscape | 5.22 |
| 6) | Chasing Time | 2.56 |
| 7) | Far Cry | 7.06 |
| 8) | Distant Ways (live) | 6.11 |
| 9) | The Last Battle | 22.44 |
Day of Wrath begins with a nice piano riff and spoken words. Then the music becomes more typical progressive. A little bouncy with heavy guitars and like said earlier very typical eighties progressive rock with lots of breaks. The drumming in this track is rather monotonous and also maybe a little too prominent, while the most interesting parts are as usual played by guitar and keyboard. Also, a track in which the bass drum is as heavily used as in metal. Halfway, the piano returns and a welcome change from the hard rocking parts. The next part is sung well with a lot of menace in the voice and although it might sound a little trite, this is progressive hard rock with nice intermezzo before it became all too popular. Also, the church organ part is very nice (well, nice might not be the right word).
The next track has some Saga influences with a very melodic vocal melody and a more "happy" heavy guitar part. The keyboard intermezzo is very fluent and the psychedelic guitar that follows is also very nice. The keyboard solo is again very reminiscent of Aragon of their album (I haven't checked who was first).
Silver Snakes is a little poppy and not too much to my taste. The music can be heavy, but the verses are piano accompanied progressive and the choruses are rather heavy but still poppy.
Cracks is a rather strange track. Menacing, with soft vocals by one and more loud vocals as well. The bass is rather prominent (or low keyboards) while keys and guitar are more in the back. The following guitar solo is more bluesy.
Rainscape is a ballad that reminds me partly of Catch the Rainbow, but the vocals are of course not as good as on the latter track. A little drums and some acoustic guitar form this song. Later the song turns a little to the symphonic and dramatic and it ends in the obligatory guitar solo.
The very up-tempo short Chasing Time is not my favourite. The sound is not very good. This is very much progressive hard rock, but it sounds outdated.
The acoustically starting moves after a short period into a plodding track with an organ sound and heavier guitars, but this is also only shortly, because then the tracks turns to become rather atmospheric and moody. The vocals are sensitive and could even be compared to Land's End. The chorus is heavier, but still the under-the-skin sound of this tracks works very well, emphasized by the occasional outburst. Good track although the ending is a little disjointed.
The next live track comes out a bit for the worse, because of the vocals mostly that are not well timed. The music is melodious this time and at the end, it turns a bit for the better, by means of a good guitar solo.
The last long track is a typical epic in the school of the Tolkien/King Arthur minded progressive kobold. A lot of changes in this track that combines freaky and melodic keyboards, heavy guitarsolo's and menacing drums with medieval minstrel-like vocalizations of the fight between Mordred and Arthur and subsequent death of both and the following period of mourning by Sir Bevidere as told by an emotional piano melody. A passionate track, containing the age-old and often told war waged between good and evil.
Jur