MajesticaA Christmas Carol

Nuclear Blast
4th December, 2020
7
Certified Bangers

Charles Dickens’ sweetly naive morality tale A Christmas Carol is one of the season’s most enduring stories. It has been retold and re-interpreted in every conceivable medium, its worldwide popularity helping to establish Christmas tropes and traditions that have carried through to the present day. 

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Unlike the original story, Majestica’s version of A Christmas Carol probably won’t win universal appeal, but for fans of wildly bombastic symphonic power metal, this is sure to hit a good note.


inverted hysteria


Taking Dickens’ classic as its foundation, Majestica throws everything to the wall from the opening moment. It’s everything that could possibly be expected from a Christmas-themed metal album, a truly big production filled with sweeping arrangements, voice-acting, orchestration, and heavy-pounding, furious power metal with gallons of cheese wedged inside.

If nothing else, A Christmas Carol is fun, an unashamedly entertaining album that celebrates the traditional Christmas spirit.

The real genius of this album isn’t the power metal aspect—if you’ve heard Majestica’s previous album or bands like Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius, you know what you’re getting there—but the cunning and fluid way the band work seasonal themes into it. A Christmas Story is glorious pomposity as Scrooge is introduced with a medley of Christmas songs storming their way across the piece and The Ghost of Christmas Past traces the melody of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing as it plunges into sheer power metal abandon. The use of different vocalists and voice actors adds depth, with Majestica going so far as to include a village choir in Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come for a moment of full-on musical theatre that’s both cheesy and perfectly acceptable in the environment. 


Blackened hysteria


If nothing else, A Christmas Carol is fun, an unashamedly entertaining album that celebrates the traditional Christmas spirit. At the close of a tough year, it’s probably something a lot of music fans need right now.

STANDOUT TRACKS: A Christmas Story, Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Sonata Arctica, Avantasia, Helloween


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