The Stormrider? Sounds like just another power/sympho metal band, doesn’t it? And surprise, surprise! It’s just that. But never judge a book only by its cover, so let’s see what The Stormrider has to offer the metal fans. This Spanish band plays a nice mixture of gothic, power and symphonic metal. And although you might already think that it is not interesting or original... well, you thought wrong. From the opening track to the very last track on this album, the band upholds the great mixture of styles and strangely enough keeps you interested as well. Why strangely? Well, for one, the band does not have much of an original sound, and together with the tacky band name, it is not much of a main attraction, if you know what I mean. But fortunately for The Stormrider, the powerful riffs, melodic keyboard and piano sounds and catchy drumming, “Criseida” has a lot in store for the metal fans. The first few tracks are mostly dipped in Rhapsody/Nightwish alike musical aspects. Nice crunchy riffs are combined with some fairly good solo work. Within the 11 tracks on the record, they certainly maintain their musical efforts at a high point of excellence. But... it cannot all be well, unfortunately.

The thing that annoyed me the most with The Stormrider was their lack of knowledge of the English language. Frontman Rubén has an incredibly strong voice and can bend his vocal chords in various styles, but his Spanish accent will not die out on the entire effort. But other than that slight mishap, I, for one, think that he is a good vocalist who has got quite some talent. Maybe a few English speaking/singing lessons should do the trick... Another cool thing on “Criseida” is the whole theme on the album. The band has created a lot of different “characters” which are played by the bandmembers themselves. This is a great addition and certainly adds to the atmosphere of this disc. “Criseida” tells a story, if you will. Unfortunately, I have yet to discover what it is about. My conclusion is that The Stormrider, despite their somewhat unoriginal style and name, have some great talents and certainly show what they are made of on the record. But like I said, the Spanish accent definitely needs to go to make this sympho/goth metal band work as a whole. Fans of Rhapsody and Nightwish certainly have a good new band to support in the scene.