Minotaurus – Insolubilis

Minotaurus

Insolubilis

by Jean-Francois Poulin at 04 May 2017, 9:05 PM

This is the fifth full-length album from longstanding German Folk-Metal veterans, MINOTAURUS. I never ever heard of this band beforehand. I know a lot of German Metal bands and I truly love bands like BLIND GUARDIAN and PRIMAL FEAR. As for the Folk-Metal genre itself, it has had its ups and downs. Some bands have directed themselves to other sub-genres and some band have been true to the genre. In the sense that some bands do have the tendency to live the gimmick. They try to have the same clothes  as back in the medieval days and there is propensity to use way too much violin and flute on their albums.

I spent most of my youth listening to Celtic artists because my mom loved the genre very much. I heard a lot of artists like Loreena McKennitt and Enya. Some of the more powerful voices in all all music, transcending the genres. You have to have that type of voice to carry the rest of the music. Well that's how I see it nonetheless. You have to back up the band, the throwback to the bards and medieval and renaissance music. You have to garner interest in the rest of the music by having a solid frontwoman or frontman to carry across the music. Well unfortunately this band lacks the proper frontman or frontwoman. Oliver Klump doesn't have the presence that it takes to drive this band. He lacks the range and emotion that you need in this type of band. He seems like he doesn't want to be there and he is going through the motions.

It may be my own impression but I tried to listened to this album multiple times and I always came to the same conclusion. He seems really disinterested. There is definitely a lack of enthusiasm on most of the songs. Musically I think it's pretty good; it's very traditional music, nothing very heavy. It resembles songs like ''A Bard's Tale'' by BLIND GUARDIAN, true to the roots of very old music. I have no problem with that and they use some very old instruments on some songs and I really thought it was nice touch. Some musical themes made me think of some songs off ''The Human Equation'' from AYREON. The use of traditional music and the omnipresence of flute in some of the songs off ''Insolubilis'' made me immediately think of the more mellow songs of the AYREON masterpiece. But like I said beforehand, the singer just gives this band a bad note in my opinion. If they had a better singer with a very good range and some passion, it would really boost this album.

I would have liked better emphasis on the music itself than the medieval imagery. You may live the gimmick a bit too much with all that medieval garb for yesteryear. They have a strong core because musically it's pretty good and you have one awesome song called ''Legend'' that could have been so much more colorful with more expressive vocals. It's really heavy and it would have been the right song to begin an epic Celtic-Folk Metal album. It was the only shine of light through a very disappointing album.

Songwriting: 5
Originality: 5
Memorability: 4
Production: 8