Savage Requiem is the fourth full-length from Belgium's Symphonic Power Metal heroes Magic Kingdom. In addition to a change of label, from Limb Music to AFM, Symphony of War's Olaf Hayer has been replaced with former Adagio/current Random Eyes vocalist Christian Palin. Guitarist Dushan Petrossi remains the driving force and another big change is the reduction of keyboards after being quite prominent on the last album. What hasn't changed is the style which remains in the Rhapsody/Ancient Bards/Freedom Call vein. Savage Requiem features all the melody, neo-classical soloing and grandiose lyrics fans of this style demand. I feel as though the songwriting has dipped significantly though and while all the elements are here they are arranged in such a "paint-by-numbers" style that Savage Requiem sounds generic and rather bland. To top it off, Palin is a decent vocalist but his performance on this album doesn't hold a candle to Hayer's work on the last one.

Savage Requiem is well played and fans of the aforementioned bands certainly won't hate it but I also don't hear anything remotely memorable that will push any current favorites off their perches.