Tarot – Gravity Of Light (2010)

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The charismatic Marco Hietala brings us the ninth full-length release of his first band: Tarot. While this band is widely recognized in Finland and Europe, the band has been relatively unknown in the USA. With Marco’s popularity increase since he joined Nightwish in 2001, and his work with Northen Kings, Tarot is finally getting the worldwide spotlight they deserve.

Playing Heavy Metal, Tarot is a band that has always released good albums over the years. “Gravity Of Light” is another one of their solid releases and if you like Marco’s voice, you need no other reason to get this release (even though he does not sign as much as we wish). The band’s music has always been ‘standard’ and we might even argue that feels a bit tired after nine releases that sound very much alike.

Handling guitar duties we have Marco’s brother Zachary. He is pretty good at crafting melodic riffs that carry the music through, but there are not a lot of ‘virtuoso’ or mesmerizing guitar playing skills in this release, just basic Heavy Metal structures. The bass guitar provided by Marco follows along the same path, nothing too great.

The majority of the vocals are provided by Tommi "Tuple" Salmela, a vocalist that sometimes sounds very similar to Marco, and when both sing at the same time it feels like a layering trick. Marco does his fare share of singing, but the band does not abuse his vocal powers in order to gain more fans. The combination of vocals works very well since both singers are very good (and similar sounding!), giving it a bit of a fresh sound to a very ‘traditional’ Heavy Metal release.

Keyboard duties are handled by Janne Tolsa, currently the man behind the keys for Eternal Tears Of Sorrow, and the great Industrial Metal band Turmion Kätilöt, who we wish was more popular in the USA. His job in “Gravity Of Light” is top notch as always, providing epic arrangements to complement the music. We enjoy the sound of the keyboards on top of the somewhat dull (‘traditonal’) music.

In general “Gravity of Light” is a pretty decent release; the music is fairly traditional and sounds good. We would like to see something a bit fresher or more epic, but Tarot has always been playing this way, so we don’t expect that to change anytime soon. The lack of memorable songs in this release brings down its score, but it does not imply the album is bad.

Band: Tarot Album: Gravity Of Light
Label: Nuclear Blast Records

Release: June 8th, 2010

Official Site myspace
Genre: Heavy Metal

Country: Finland

Rating: 82/100
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