Review by Greg on June 16, 2025.

Here we have another album that sounds truly interesting on paper. Udal Cuain is a power/prog act from central Italy, apparently deriving their name from Scottish Gaelic. No One Falls Like A God is the equally interesting title of their first LP, released last year, adorned with a visually striking artwork. Hey, the guys have done their first impressions homework, for sure.

One thing worth noting is that Udal Cuain is really only a duo, made up of histrionic vocalist Alessio Parretti, who also takes care of the keyboards and piano parts, and Matteo Meucci on every other instrument, including the drum programming. Yeah, it seems they've never had a drummer so far, and while it isn't too blatant – I really noticed just moments before writing this review and certainly not while listening – we still get rather basic drumming, which, coupled with Meucci's reticence to go all-out crazy on the fretboard very often, leaves Parretti as the band's main selling point. This is... not a bad move, to be honest. He has enough charisma to lead the music on his own, and I dig his voice, which generally resembles Blind Guardian's Hansi Kürsch, yet is reasonably far from being an imitation. He even attempts some harsh vocals and quasi-growls on the title-track, but those were maybe a step too far. Nevertheless, something kept not convicing me, even after several listens. More specifically, for a power/prog album, No One Falls Like A God suffers from a weird problem: in almost every song the refrains are... not that good, and often they're even less interesting than the respective verses. It might look like a relatively negligible detail, but it does create an underwhelming, anticlimactic effect where every song feels constantly one mere step away from expressing its whole potential with a triumphant explosion, and then never gets there.

The most shining example in this regard has to be 'Sun Is Dead', which is still among the best tracks of the bunch, mainly due to its stunning post-chorus, but it applies to more or less the whole tracklist, really. All of this leaves a bitter aftertaste, since the band no doubt hints at something great, from time to time. 'Sun Is Dead' is indeed followed, and outplayed, by the chunky closer 'Descent', which offers a perfect summa of the band's style and lots of guitar/keys goodness to boot, and I also found 'Saint Petersburg (In A Dream Of Ice And Snow)' captivating – a soothing, if slightly repetitive, piano ballad that almost evokes an imaginary joint venture between Savatage and certain operatic songs made by Avantasia. Sadly, the album's first half fails to bring a similar allure, with the above issue (I can't be the only one to think that the chorus of opener 'Silence' is far too banal to really excite), and generally less successful tracks, to the point I'm struggling to remember anything to say about 'If You Breed Wolves' or (worse still) 'Beauty From The Storm'.

As of now, No One Falls Like A God and Udal Cuain remain more interesting in theory than in practice. Let's hope a future sophomore will sharpen their skills and, maybe, bring a completely human lineup to the equation.

Rating: 7.3 out of 10