M.i.d.n.i.g.h.t. Forces is a totally unknown power metal band from Italy. Right from the first few seconds it’s obvious that this is not going to be one of the best albums I have heard recently. The sound is unbelievably chaotic; the bass and guitars drown in a wall of noise and all that is recognizable are the monotone pounding drums. The result is an album that sounds as if it has been recorded in a basement. The fourth song, “Dark Lords Of Sidereal Nights”, for instance, starts with acoustic guitars, but the melody that is being played is totally unrecognizable.

The music is a mix of power metal and heavy metal. M.i.d.n.i.g.h.t. Forces at least doesn’t resort to the usage of cheap and boring background keyboards. Nevertheless it is all extremely predictable and the songs lack the hooks necessary to be interesting. I have listened to this album several times and I still have problems recognizing the songs. Of course I realize that that is partly due to the extremely fuzzy sound.

The vocals of Mauro Sarracino at times remind strongly of the Finnish Sentenced and are just like the rest of the band below average. This band seriously has to work on their song writing because the few good ideas I hear on this album are unfortunately nothing more than fragments. But above all else, this band seriously has to work on their sound. No matter how brilliant the songs are, an album that sounds this chaotic truly turns each and every song into a simple wall of noise, an indefinable cacophony of distorted and inseparable sounds that might as well be background noise that my stereo has failed to filter out!

Is there truly nothing good about this album then? Well, personally I really dig the album title, Raystorm. And like I mentioned before, there’s several good ideas on it, like for instance parts of “Spiral Of Madness” and parts of the aforementioned song, “Dark Lords Of Sidereal Nights”, but that’s about it.