Prophet of the Last Eclipse

Prophet of the Last Eclipse

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Limited edition digibook version of 2002 album includes two bonus tracks, 'Dark Comet's Reign' & 'Demonheart' feat. Andre Matos. Plus 40 0page color booklet with additional photos & liner notes by Luca Turilli. Slipcase. InsideOut.

Tracks:

Aenigma
War Of The Universe
Rider Of The Astral Fire
Zaephyr Skies' Theme
The Age Of Mystic Ice
Prince Of Starlight
Timeless Oceans
Demonheart
New Century's Tarantella
Prophet Of The Last Eclipse

Customer Reviews:

listen to the biggest luca fan ever.......2007-02-26

this is the greatest album i have ever heard and since its release i have not found a more timeless album other than rust in peace. you will be inspired and might even shed a tear. I cannot recommend this higher than if the cd was written by god himself.

Novel and very impressive.......2006-04-24

You will either love or hate this stuff. Pompous, grandiose, glorious, over-the-top and brilliant. Huge chorus, full orchestra, masterful violin playing, and breakneck metal guitar work, all swirled together quite stunningly.

Metallica tried to do this with their S&M album. Some of that album worked great, but most of it felt like a "mashup" rather than a cohesive piece of music. THIS is what they were aiming for.

Imagine if Danny Elfman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Metallica co-wrote a space opera. Yeah. Freakin' awesome. For anyone who loves musicals and metal, this will wonderfully fill both those desires simultaneously.

I'm really impressed. My daughter's favorite albums are System of a Down's "Mesmerize" and the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack. She loves Prophet of the Last Eclipse. 'nuff said.

A defining masterpiece in symphonic metal.......2004-07-06

For those familiar with Luca Turilli's work, you know that he likes his music big, huge, bombastic, and sweeping in composition - which is both a turn off for some metal fans and the reason a good deal of his audience is rabid about his work. Love or hate his material, one would have a hard time denying the strength of his melodic sense and compositions, along with the fact that throughout his career he has kept upping the ante, making the music bigger and bigger and bigger.......

And then, there was Prophet of the Last Eclipse.

On this, Luca's second solo album, the sound has gone so through the roof it can barely even be seen anymore. This is big, this is powerful, this is in your face, but this is also stretching a few boundaries of what can even be called metal...rather, the music on Prophet of the Last Eclipse sounds like a hyperactive symphony from outer space, with a metal band guesting to back it up. There are almost 30 choir members on the album, in 4 seperate choirs, along with the String Quintet of Hamburg, Germany, plus a timpani player. Add to this Luca's normal guitar/bass/drums/keyboards/vocals band and his brand of epic composing, and you have one of the biggest and most pompous albums to come out since.. well, the last Rhapsody release actually. But this may be even more giant sounding, and the best thing about it is; it's of the same quality.

Prophet of the Last Eclipse is a conceptual work, telling an odd story revolving around love and apocalyptic prophecy on a distant planet. While not on the same level as a successful author's material, Luca manages to craft a short and interesting, as well as even a bit original (for science fiction), tale.
The album is also a nice evolution in Luca Turilli's sound in ways; first, as aforementioned, the album sounds like a symphony with a metal band as opposed to a metal band with a symphony. In the booklet, it's learned that Luca restrained himself guitarwise on this album in order to let the compositions and the classical instrumation come through a lot more. For this, he gains extra respect from me and what's good is that contrary to what most people would fear, the music is actually enhanced by a little less guitar. There are never any guitar parts battling with string parts for volume or attention, or any loose ends on the album, every part of the huge arrangements is placed within the songs tastefully and professionally. Although, once in a while the rhythm guitar work can get a bit lost in the large mix, but it doesn't detract a great amount - that's how big the orchestration is here. Second, there is now a good amount of a surprising element added to this music - an electronic influence ranging from techno-esque to dark and ambient....something of a crash course in awkwardness or metal suicide in print, yet on this album the new electronic elements are placed absolutely without flaw, meshing perfectly with the choirs, strings, and metal guitars and drums. This becomes apparent as soon as Aenigma, the album intro, hits with a dark sounding programmed beat that soon melts into one with the sounds and rhythms of the European Renaissance-era styled choir. After 2 minutes, the intro explodes into War of the Universe, an excellent speedy song with great vocals from Olaf Hayer and a shredding, aggressive violin/cello riff. Yes, that's 'violin/cello riff', and it shreds well right along with the thunderous drumwork and subtle little synth bleeps and bloops underneath the verses. Nice melodic guitar solo from Luca here as well. Next is Rider of the Astral Fire, where the creativity of the sound and Turilli's sense of melody really start to create some huge sparks. Excellent programming, rhythm guitar riffs, and even a good use of a children's choir can be found here. The first minute of the song is also sheer melodic brilliance, with a slow, pulsing, and dark intro building up to a galloping and positively glorious sounding viola/violin harmony with a heavy riff underpinning, taking a breather with some light keys before going into the first verse. Fantastic. Zaephyr Skies' Theme is a slower, ballad like instrumental with a gentle electronic pulse and some beautiful female vocalizations. Another major high point is the album's single, Demonheart, with some menacing programming, slashing guitar work, and an unbelievable chorus punctuated by a powerfully contrasting choir. New Century's Tarentella is another good showcase of the album's creativity, being a power-metalized rendition of classical Italian tarentella style music, though lacking a bit in the overall songwriting department. The album closer, the epic title track, is nothing short of stunning in parts and though with some weak links in the middle section, is a fitting climax for the album. Starting with the same Renaissance-styled choir heard singing in Aenigma, the song soon morphs into a ball of pure intensity, fading into a fanatical keyboard part and bursting into a crushingly heavy double bass drum attack, layered with orchestral strikes and a Latin-chanting male choir that brings almost frightening shivers. The verses also work well, after the song slows to mid pace, the female vocal in the middle part after the almost gothic keyboards is perfect, and the song closes with the same intense opening which slows down to a final, peaceful sounding Latin verse by the choir.

Overall this is one of the best, truly symphonic metal releases around. There is a track or two hindered by weaker songwriting, such as Timeless Oceans which has a few awkward melodies, and the album can also tend to give off a feeling of wanting more, but this is an album more than worthy of attention if you're not put off by the amount of symphonic elements involved. Superb.

gorgeous -- Turilli never disappoints.......2004-02-26

Science fiction is a bastardized, inferior sub-genre of fantasy, which is a much broader and deeper category. Pure science fiction is pure garbage. The best works in science fiction -- Dune or Clifford Simak in novels, Star Wars in movies, etc. -- are just fantasy dressed up as sci-fi. The reigning master of symphonic fantasy metal is pretty much taking that tactic here, as he turns his considerable talents to a futuristic, occasionally electronic album that still retains the epic, choral, heavy, fast, technically perfect, wonderfully produced and indescribably brillant Rhapsody sound that has captivated the world of metal. At times this album has a heavenly beauty unmatched even by Turilli's past efforts, at other times it is as heavy and aggressive as the superhuman Dawn of Victory album. You should get this one even if you don't like Rhapsody. If you do, you should have gotten it a long time ago.

Fantasy VS. Science Fiction.......2003-12-04

Rhpasody's guitarrist tried to be more creative this time and he really had it on. His first album was just the same as Rhapsody but with poorer vocals. In this second album he mixes science fiction with fantasy. The songs that most stand out are Demonheart, War of the Universe, Rider of the Astral Fire and Prophet of the last eclipse.
If you like symphonic power metal try this Cosmic Metal as defined by Luca Turilli and you'll surely love it.

Average customer rating:

Some Brilliant Songs, Just not Enough
OTT At It's best

Prophet of the Last Eclipse
Luca Turilli
Manufacturer: Lmp
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Metal | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Progressive | Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00006LJ9T
Release Date: 2002-11-26

Tracks:

Aenigma
War Of The Universe
Rider Of The Astral Fire
Zaephyr Skies' Theme
The Age Of Mystic Ice
Prince Of The Starlight
Timeless Oceans
Demonheart
New Century's Tarantella
Prophet Of The Last Eclipse
Dark Comet's Reign
Demonheart

Album Description

Limited edition digibook version of 2002 album includes two bonus tracks, 'Dark Comet's Reign' & 'Demonheart' feat. Andre Matos. Plus 40 0page color booklet with additional photos & liner notes by Luca Turilli. Slipcase. InsideOut.

Customer Reviews:

Some Brilliant Songs, Just not Enough.......2003-06-09

For those of you who are not familiar with Luca Turilli, a little background is in order. Turilli is the multi-talented lead guitar player, composer and de facto leader of Italian power metal band, Rhapsody. Rhapsody, which is probably the best known of the power metal bands, calls their music Hollywood, classical, symphonic power metal or something like that. I can see where they get the hollywood tag since all of their music is concept in nature, dealing with kings, dragons, trolls etc. Although I'm not necessarily a fan, I am an admirer. The members of Rhapsody are all excellent musicians, whose music tends to be technically perfect, though a bit tedious.

Profit of the Last Eclipse is a Turilli side project, his second. I checked several independent reviews on this album before writing this review and there doesn't seem to be any consensus since the reviews ranged from 6.5 to 10 (they usually use the richter scale). My observation was that some reviewers (those who are fans) would rate anything by Rhapsody / Luca Turilli in the 9 to 10 range and those not enraptured (pun intended) somewhat lower. I tend to side with the latter, giving the album a 7.5. I wanted to rate this higher, I really did. I'm sure there are people out there that will disagree with me and that's fine but this is the way I see it. When I first started listening to this CD I thought it was going to be a fantastic meg-album because the first two songs, Aenigma and War of the Universe, are absolutely superb, however things dropped off fast. The third song was nothing special and the fourth song (an instrumental) was boring.

The first two songs were different for this band, kind of operatic with choirs, like Therion. There were flashes of it throughout the album but in all other songs, to varying degrees, Luca Turilli sounded like (surprise) Rhapsody. Now there is nothing wrong with sounding like Rhapsody, especially if you are an integral part of Rhapsody. I just thought it sounded redundant, especially after the brilliant start and I have never been as impressed with Rhapsody as other people seem to be.

Anyway, I decided to listen to the CD a few more times to see if I would like it better and sure enough the sixth, Prince of the Starlight, eighth, Demonheart and ninth song New Century's Tarantella weren't bad and the eleven minute closing title track Profit of the Last Eclipse was actually pretty good but two great songs, one real good song and three slightly better than average songs do not, in my opinion, make a 5 or even 4 star rating. Additionally, this is concept album but the story, to me, is nebulous. I read that it's about love in a distant galaxy, although I couldn't get that out by listening to it.

I'm sorry if my review disappoints you but if you want some great epic power metal music take a look at Hastings 1066 by Thy Majestie. These guys also start out with a Therion-esque introduction but they carry it through the entire album better. I wonder if this is the future wave of power metal? Anyway, these guys don't have to worry about sounding like Rhapsody, although they have been compared with them.

OTT At It's best.......2003-05-24

This is what happens when the mastermind of Rhapsody is left alone for too long.
The album is an intersting concept album set far into the future, and is the usual Power Metal sing-a-long affair with far more symphonics than any Nightwish album you could care to mention. Luca has surrounded himself with competent musicians and the album is in most ways awesome so why not give it 5 stars? Well, the bombast of it can grow old if you;re not too careful. But then, that's the same with most power metal, isn't?

Average customer rating:

Yea, I think this is one of the most great albums in the world
space opera mayhem

Prophet of the Last Eclipse
Luca Turilli
Manufacturer: Limb Music Products
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Progressive Metal | Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00006JOTG
Release Date: 2002-11-04

Tracks:

Aenigma
War of the Universe
Rider of the Astral Fire
Zaephyr Skies' Theme
Age of Mystic Ice
Prince of the Starlight
Timeless Oceans
Demonheart
New Century's Tarantella
Prophet of the Last Eclipse

Album Details

Japanese Version featuring a Bonus Track

Customer Reviews:

Yea, I think this is one of the most great albums in the world.......2005-10-25

I have hear a lot of music, and always get tired after a week or two, but in this case is diferent, the songs, the history, and the combination of metal and orchrestra is wonderfull.

if you want a change from the trash music of the radio, you must get a copy of this album.

space opera mayhem.......2004-04-06

Luca turilli is a master of the guitar. He writes all the songs and plays guitar and a little keyboard. It tells a story of a fallen ship and a love that could not be. This is the greatest album of all time and the greatest story. The Prophet of the Last Eclipse will make you rethink your life. Everything Luca touches he turns to gold. Get this album or this world will cease because you dont know what is awesome. I am going to buy another copy of this album just in case something happens to the original. When I am dying I will say hey, blast Luca on the stereo so i can die happy. Olaf's vocals are clear and the drums are phenomenal and Im not even going to comment on the superb guitar mastery. Slap yourself in the face and dont make me tell you to get this album again. DO IT! FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!

Prophet Of The Last Eclipse [Limited Edition]

Average customer rating:

Prophet Of The Last Eclipse [Limited Edition]
Turilli , and Luca
Manufacturer: Limb
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000LX5Q46

Average customer rating:

Prophet of the Last Eclipse
Luca Turilli
Manufacturer: Jvc Japan
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000252JMK
Release Date: 2007-06-18

Average customer rating:

Prophet Of The Last Eclipse
Turilli , and Luca
Manufacturer: Limb
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000LX3NWS

Music Track: