• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

So the mad Doctor enters his new lab with a purpose in mind - to create the best Power Metal band that there ever was. He has his heart in the right place, and he has his favorite genre in mind - from the crystalline clear Finnish pop metal sound to the high-flying German variety of Power Metal - and everything is in place. The lab is rather dark and dank, with the familiar cobwebs adorning the nooks and crannies of the stone walls, and he reminds himself to change the lightbulb, which its previous occupants had apparently not bothered to change. He looks at the few half-empty potion flasks still sitting on the table under the glow of the candle he has carried with him. There is one rather cracked and old flask labeled Helloween, mostly all gone by now, and another labeled Gamma Ray, also almost empty. The flask labeled Edguy has a moderate amount of fluid left in it, albeit not enough for it to flow over the top, and there is, very fortunately for the good Doctor, a large jug of bright, slushy orange liquid with a large piece of scotch tape across its exterior - labeled DragonForce. In his excitement, the Doctor, clumsy as he is, knocks all of the flasks off the table and sends them plummeting down into the large basin on the floor. A curious poof of smoke floats out, lazily drifting through the damp, weighty air, followed by a strong smell of brimstone and burnt flesh. A small explosion ensues, knocking the Doctor to his rear as a creature arises. The Doctor claps with glee, shouting "It's alive!" and getting to his feet as the beast lumbers towards him. The Doctor's smile fades as he realizes that his monster is imperfect - it walks with a limp, and one of its arms is raised quite a bit higher than the other. A failed experiment, he realizes, does this beast have any reason to exist? What has he created?

Where am I going with this? Well, if one were to, as I mentioned above, mix elements of Helloween, Edguy and DragonForce into a gigantic melting pot, then he would probably get something rather gay and melodious. However, if the mixture lacked the right amount of the components (as again, in reference to the above), then the final product might come out disfigured and malformed, an incomplete, unfinished experiment.

That'd be Cellador, if you were too dense to figure it out by now. This band gets a lot of hype, but they are nowhere near as good as all of that. Picture DragonForce with shorter songs and less catchy choruses, and you'd get something like this. Every Cellador album should come with a big ol' sticker on the front of the case that loudly proclaims "0% ORIGINALITY," because that would be a very accurate description of the music contained within. Seriously, I have no problem with bands not bringing anything new to the table, but there is a line that shouldn't be crossed, and you know you've crossed that line when your songs sound like stolen DragonForce B-sides. Bands like Insania and Twilightning have made excellent albums without more than a smidgen of unique artistic vision, but Cellador are just too much. None of their songs are original in the slightest, with far too many passages that were apparently directly ripped from various DragonForce songs (with the most obvious plagiarisms being evident in the intro of "A Sign Far Beyond" and the last minute or two of "No Chances Lost," not to mention the hundreds of other little tidbits I could name if I had time to listen to this album over and over again). Not good, guys. Not good at all.

And another thing - I could also excuse the aforementioned unoriginality if Cellador played some hooky, catchy songs (Excalion do this extremely well, as do the aforementioned Insania and Twilightning), but I honestly can't remember much of anything about this. It's boring. None of the songs here stick at all, and it's painfully evident that this band has no idea how to write a (good) song. This is more shallow than a wading pool, and a lot less fun, too. Cellador lacks integrity and individuality, and they can't even write a good hook to hide that fact. Sad.

This is a young band, so I won't come down as hard on them as I would with a band with more albums under their belt, but Enter Deception is a failure. Cellador shows promise, and hopefully they'll fulfill it with their next album, but all we have here is just vapid, unoriginal shash that doesn't merit more than a curious listen. Not recommended.