Bombast, thy name is Rhapsody.

If it isn’t already a genre (and it must be), Rhapsody are the reigning kings of Dungeons and Dragons Metal. They’ve all the charms of overly earnest foriegn nerds (they’re from Italy, a country too sunny to produce many metal outfits), and the blind spot to their own ridiculousness that comes with it. The extended story at the end of ‘Heros of the Lost Valleys’ is a dead ringer for the ‘no one knows who they were, or…what they were doing there’ speech in the middle ofSpinal Tap’s ‘Stonehenge’, but Rhapsody are deadly serious, and have 5 more songs continuing the epic.

Due to legal issues, they recently changed their name to ‘Rhapsody of Fire’, but if the site for their new album’s any indication, it’s only spurred them deeper into Arthurian mythology and Elfin conquest. A review on AllMusic.com suggested (of their album ‘Power of the Dragon Flame’) ‘perhaps this gets a bit overblown at times’; give this man the award for understatement. I recommend starting off with the full-out ‘Agony’ and ‘Emerald Sword’, both replete with operatic choruses, declarations of vengeance, and multilayered orchestrations, then perhaps moving on to slower ballads like ‘The Magic of The Wizard’s Dream’. Sweet mercy, they even have Christopher Lee starring in their epic video for ‘Unholy Warcry’!!!

Black-robed figures, check. Castle ruins, check. Negative effect, check. Skulls, flames, check. It’s no ‘Holy Diver’, but few things can top Dio’s ample sword-swinging.

Ah, I forgot Europe’s laxity concerning toplessness. This one definitely makes up for the latter’s lack of wild sword-waving and bad CGI. Please watch halfway in for the keyboardist in glowing-orb combat with the demon chick. Demon chick wins and then goes on to kill the lead guitarist’s sleeping bride. He’s understandably upset and therefore very motivated to fight the giant glowing electric gash in the woods.

Wisdom of The Kings.

Electric Thunderforce. This is some serious Medieval Times shit.

Power of the Dragon Flame. It’s really hard to date foriegn videos and metal videos since both have a tendancy to use effects about 5 years out of date, Italy’s taste veers wildly towards tacky, and metal imagery’s been stuck in a rut since the late 80′s. This could have been made any time between 1981 and now.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go slay some trolls.