Thalia: Reign of Philosophy (1998)

French band THALIA was formed in 1985, and during the next 15 years they would release a handful or so of demo tapes in addition to two official productions. The EP "Reign of Philosophy" from 1998 was the first of these.

The name of the game for this French quartet appears to have been traditional heavy metal, with a certain emphasis on melody and frequently bordering more of a hard rock expression. In addition it seems that they aspired towards implementing features of a more sophisticated manner, at least of this EP is representative of their output.

The most striking feature is the lead vocals by Fabrice Emmanuel however. His voice is rich and soulful, and combined with a powerful delivery his performance becomes something of a trademark feature. In timbre and delivery he comes across as a powerhouse version of pop vocalist Seal, although with a distict French accent. Mixed on top of the instrumentation, and due to that it is the lead vocals that carry this album. For better or worse. For better on opening piece Love and Hate and the following Omniscient, the former a straight forward melodic heavy metal effort and the latter a quirky but not quite successful venture into hard rock territories, the vocals giving both of these compositions a slight lift, the opening track in particular.

But the following numbers Like a Question and title track The Reign of Philosophy might have fared better with more of an emphasis on the instrumental performance and compositional structure. Especially in the case of the latter we're dealing with a fairly refined creation, with multiple motifs coming and going, a distinct development of themes and in general a song whose structure and arrangements are much closer to the realms of progressive rock. Both of them interesting pieces, the latter actually pretty close earning a brilliant mark from me, mere details and nuances in personal taste just about the only reason for me not to hand out a perfect grade for this individual compositions.

By and large an interesting EP by a talented band with aspirations to venture beyond their apparent hard rock and melodic heavy metal foundation, and a band that might warrant inspection by those who enjoyed the debut albums by Queensryche and Dream Theater. At least as far as this particular production goes.

My rating: 60/100


Track list:
1. Love and Hate 5:33
2. Omniscient 3:18
3. Like a Question 5:15
4. The Reign of Philosophy 6:38