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Rhapsody studioreport: witnessing a film without images
A new Rhapsody-cd is always something to look forward to. That said, the new record from the band based around Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli is shaping up to be something extra special. For the first time the group has collaborated with an orchestra and a 50-piece choir to enhance their epic sound. Furthermore the band asked actor Christopher Lee – known for films like Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, James Bond and countless of horror-flicks – to narrate the story. Lords Of Metal ventured to Germany to hear the new mini-cd ‘The Dark Secrer’ (releasedate: June 28) and a conversation with keyboardplayer Alex Staropoli.
Text: Ferdi
The listeningsession takes place in Peppermin Park Studios in Hannover, Germany. Bands such as the Scorpions and a number of unknown German popgroups recorded here. Mind you, this is not the studio where Rhapsody created their latest baby. It is a conveniently placed studio in the North of Germany, with an hourly rate which is likely to be a lot less steep than the studio’s where the actual onslaught took place. Minko Marten from recordcompany SPV leads the group of journalists, including people from the Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia and Spain, to control room of the large studio.
The expectations for the new full-length ‘Symphony Of Enchanted Lands 2: The Dark Secret’ are high and Rhapsody has a lot to prove. Even though the last album ‘Power Of The Dragonflame’ was filled with good music, some listeners could not escape the feeling that the band was repeating the same bunch of tricks they used on the albums before. And the sound of the album wasn’t as the bandmembers wanted it to be, mainly thanks to a lack of co-operation and money from their previous label Limb. Fortunately the new recordcompany SPV has not spared any expense to make the new album sound truly spectacular. Rhapsody was able to record with a philharmonic orchestra, hired a 50-piece choir and arranged narration by actor Christopher Lee. The presspromotor from SPV tells the members of the press that the upcoming mini-cd is just a tip of the iceberg: many more spectacular albums will follow.
The listeningsession
An employee of the studio cranks up the volume, and the mini-cd ‘The Dark Secret’ is heard through the isolated studio. The song ‘Unholy Warcry’ starts off with a spoken intro, followed by symphonic sounds that you could easily mistake for a filmscore. The value of the large-scale production becomes evidential once a large choir backs up the rhythmguitar. Making Rhapsody sound richer than ever before. The sound is still very recognisable, thanks to the easy structure and Luca’s trademark tarantella-solo. This song’s main attraction, however, are its vocallines, which are shared between the Fabio Lione (who’se singing better than ever) and the 50-piece choir.
‘Thunder’s Mighty Roar’ incorporates the use of a battalion of violin-players with a shared talent for mimicking Vivaldi, reminiscent of some of the epic ‘Dark Tower Of Abyss’ from Rhapsody’s second cd. The difference is that this time the set-up is so much larger, as is the numbers of violins. The song unmistakably echo’s the more symphonic elements from the first two cd’s, only so much more refined.
Every Rhapsody-cd has at least one slow song. This time it is the track ‘Guardians Of Destiny’. The song starts off with a nice flute-intro, after which keyboards and female vocals mimic the ideal atmospheres that made Luca’s first solo-cd such a winner. Strong vocals from Fabio take the listener on a journey from sweet folkparts to volcanic eruptions of Nightwish-bombast.
Arguably the most spectacular song is the epic ‘Sacred Power Of Raging Winds’, which starts of with the howling sound of an approaching storm. The next part is truly impressive, thanks to the impressive voice of the narrator. When Christopher Lee starts saying a magic formula, I am all of a sudden back in the seats of the movie theatre. Watching how the istari Saruman stands atop of Orthanc, trying to bring down the mountain that Gandalf in his company are bravely trying to cross. I do not think I need to tell you which movie the song reminded me of: the filmy music gives the song the same heroic yet sinister undertone as The One Trilogy. Another neat feat it the instrumental passage near the end: a gracious dance between guitar and flute, where not the electrified instrument but the long, wind instrument leads the movements.
The closing song ‘Non Ho Sonno’ is the odd one out. Originally recorded by the band Goblin, Rhapsody has taken it and given it a twist. The new version retains the atmosphere of the original but adds subtle drumming and scarcely used guitarplaying. The result strangely enough reminds of Japanese videogame-soundtracks, most notably the scores of Secret Of Mana and Final Fantasy. It is interesting to note, also, that singer Fabio is conspicuous by his absence.
If what we heard was anything like the upcoming full-length, then we are in for a treat later this year. Especially fans of contemporary filmcomposer Howard Shore and John Williams are bound to be moved by Rhapsody’s latest piece of work. ‘The Dark Secret’ has all the ingredients of a great movie: an engaging storyline, great music and a wonderful actor.
Christopher Lee’s role in this should not be underestimated: hiring him seems like a stroke of genius. The importance of his presence was illustrated when all the journalist got to watch a dvd with the making-of of Rhapsody’s new album. Lots of chatting, but when Christopher Lee shows up on the dvd, everyone just went quiet. Because there is no talking whenever mister Lee speaks. When he talks, you shut up and listen. Perhaps you’ll silently chuckle, at most, when he cracks a joke or two. It will be interesting to see how many Lord Of The Rings-fans will be converted to Rhapsody-fans because of Lee’s inclusion.
Still, the sound of Rhapsody does not seem to have changed a lot besides the use of a choir, orchestra and narrator. The band still seems to be looking back as much as it is looking forward. Listening to half an hour of Rhapsody equals thirty minute of guessing which part reminds you of which older song. The five songs on ‘The Dark Secret’ contain typical Rhapsody-elements, which is its biggest strength as well as its weakness – depending on how fed up you are with the band after hearing the previous five albums.
Interview
After the interview I spoke to keyboardplayer Alex Staropoli, who co-wrote and co-produced the album. The Italian keyboardplayed talks about the new cd enthusiastically and passionately.
 How should we see this album in Rhapsody’s evolution?
“Every album is a step in Rhapsody’s career. We are going through an unbelievable majestic progress. We have the orchestra, we have the choir and we have Christopher Lee narrating. This project will show you what we had in mind all along with Rhapsody: the most majestic sound possible. We call it filmscoremetal. That is a great feeling: finally we sound like what we wanted to. That was not possible in the past, due to various reasons: technology, money, support and the right contacts.”
For this album you worked with the Czech philharmonic orchestra. How did you orchestrate the music so they could work with it?
“I wrote all the keyboardparts myself just like I did on any of the previous albums. But this time I wrote the arrangements with the orchestra in mind, thinking about how they could play it. You can only use a small number of keyboardlines together before it becomes a mess. With a real orchestra you can keep adding instruments without them disturbing the sound. In fact it increases the quality of the music. After finishing the arrangements I gave the midi-files everything to a professional arranger who scored the music. He mapped out the music so the orchestra could play it.”
In the past you filled most of the music up yourself on your keyboards. Now that you used real muscisians, did that leave any room for you on the album to play?
“Not much. I would say that, out of all the orchestral parts, about twenty percent were done by me on my keyboards. Everything else was handled by the real muscisians. These versatile muscisians gave the album a much better sound, so I wanted to give them as much space as possible. Seeing the philharmonic orchestra play all my songs was one of the most emotionally intense moment of the whole recording-process.”
Did you have any boundaries whatsoever when you recorded the new album?
“We had no financial or practical restrictions. The only restriction that we had was the time available. There was a lot of stress in the studio, because I was still arranging parts when we were already recording Fabio’s vocals. I was exhausted at the end.”
Your vocalist Fabio Lione sounds a lot stronger this time.
“Fabio did the best performance in his entire career in Rhapsody. On some older records he came into the studio right after a tour. This time he wasn’t singing for some months and his voice was fresh again. Also, the relationship between Fabio and the rest of the band is a lot better than it was a couple of years ago.”
You are big fans of the Lord Of The Rings-films. How much influence did these films have on your new cd?
“The movies changed the way I look at our music and fantasy in general. Luca has always been the visionary of Rhapsody, the one who imagined all the stories and translated them to lyrics. He always had this big picture in his mind about what the world in our saga looked like, but it never really came across to me. Lord Of The Rings was a revelation for me: this long fantasy movie that was epic and impressive. For the first time I was able to understand what Luca tried to create all along with Rhapsody: images of snowy mountains, fast forests and large battles. I can imagine people might link Peter Jackson’s works to our new album: the music very much works as the score to an epic fantasymovie. We originally intended to write an album entirely dedicated to the Lord Of The Rings-films. Unfortunately we could not get the rights to use the original names and events, so we decided to record instead the album that became ‘The Dark Secret’.”
There are a number of similarities between Howard Shore’s Oscar-winning score for Lord Of The Rings and the soundscapes on your new songs.
“Yes, but Howard Shore has never been one of my influences. In fact I did not even know his work before Lord Of The Rings. But I can imagine that, to the listener, the music has the same magic. Two individual people can sometimes come up with different pieces of music that create the same emotions with the listener. I think this could be the case with Howard Shore. We are both trying to spread the same feeling with out music.”
 You asked Christopher Lee, mostly known for starring as the istari Saruman on Lord Of The Rings, to narrate your new series of albums.
“We could not believe it when we heard that we had the possibility of having him on our new album. That was such an honour. We were blown away. He has this voice… amazing! We recorded his parts during a couple of days in a London-based studio. He was a pleasant man to work with. He liked to have fun in the studio. How much did we pay him? I cannot say that. It was a lot, but it was worth it. It was all about delivering the message to the listener in the most compelling way possible.”
What did mister Lee think of starring on a metal-cd?
“We spend a lot of time talking these things things. He has an amazingly deep personality and has a very wide knowledge. Christopher Lees was very open to our music and I believe that he understood the positive message of the band.”
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