CELLADOR - Off the Grid Review

CELLADOR - Off the Grid

Scarlet Records

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The first time that I learned about CELLADOR was in a review of their debut album which was released by Metal Blade Records and was entitled “Enter Deception”. I remember that the review was not very positive, because its writer considered the band as another DRAGONFORCE clone.  Sometime later I saw on YouTube the videoclip for the song “Leaving all Behind” which I liked and this made me search more about the band and finally I purchased their debut CD. As for the similarities of CELLADOR with DRAGONFORCE I think it is just their common influences from the German power metal scene.

I mentioned above the German power metal sound and you might think that CELLADOR are a band from Europe. Well, probably, their ancestors might have come from our continent, but the band comes from the U.S.A. and this is the interesting fact since in the past we had many European bands being influenced by the U.S. power metal scene, but never a U.S. metal band to do otherwise (ok maybe there are a few elements in RIOT’s “Thundersteel”) and CELLADOR were the first. This is though not enough to drag anyone’s attention. The most important thing is that CELLADOR manage to give to their influences their own personal touch and create a sound that stands out amongst the many power metal bands that pop out every day. 

In their new album which finds them in a new label and comes many years after their debut release, I was happy to discover that the band has not changed its style. Once again you will have the chance to listen to compositions that balance between melodic and heavy parts that have this German power metal feeling filtered through some U.S. metal elements. The performance of the band and their skills as musicians are on a high level and the production of the album helps them to display them in every detail.

“Off the Grid” is a good heavy/power metal album that the fans of this genre will notice easily and it is a release that given time the listener will love more and more.

Nick “Verkaim” Parastatidis