This Swedish act offers Euro Power Metal of the happiest kind, with semi bombastic elements, fast drums, screaming guitars and choir arrangements, all wrapped up in symphonic keyboard tones. Certainly not that original, but rather enjoyable anyway.
An easygoing, uplifting, cosy experience, that won't write music history, is what this record has to offer.
Line Of Fire shows right away what the record has to offer; happy and memorable melody, sing-a-long choir, pretty good guitarplaying, and the ever present keyboard, which can seem a bit overdone, though this is one of the songs where it works. It's a bit simple and heard before, but nevertheless makes me bang my head, jump around and sing a long. So it works.
Judas Call starts out almost like an old hard rock tune, which comes as no surprise as singer Pete Sandberg has a long background in
AOR band Alien. But then comes the surprise; in less than a second, the song changes character 100 percent, from old Rock to super happy Power Metal, a la Heavenly, as the overshadowing keyboard sets in and the song speeds up. It can appear almost like schizophrenia, and doesn't really add to the flow of the song. In other songs this combination of Hard Rock and Power Metal works better, but here it comes across as a bit weird. Nevertheless, I guess die-hard euro Power metal fans will dig the chorus.
Holy Graal has a sweet melody, somewhat in the vein of Freedom Call, spiced up with some chamber music like keyboards. The chorus is cool, the vocals sound great and here the combination of old Rock and Power Metal elements works just fine. I could have wished for a little more variation in the keyboard department, hearing the same part over and over gets a little trivial. But overall this song is cool, if you like me dig happy melodies and a little touch of classical music thrown in.
I don't really like the expression "Kindergarten Metal", but if I'd ever use it,
Endless Slaughter would be the perfect song to use it on. Though it seems a bit degrading, I have no better suited word for it. The melody really is reminiscent of something that would have made a fine children's song, and the boy's choir joining in, makes it even more so. That doesn't mean it totally sucks, it's just a little funny, especially with the title in mind.
The last song,
Edge Of The World, is somewhat different from the rest of the songs, it's more straight ahead Hard Rock, pretty groovy with a good rhythm section and a memorable melody. The melodyline combined with the simple guitar, lead my thoughts to old Hard Rock like Pretty Maids. It's a cool ending, and gives a little extra diversity to the album.
The singer, Pete Sandberg, who has a long carrier behind him (has played in Von Rosén, Alien, Madison, Midnight Sun as well as putting out three solo releases) has a personal voice, and his past in
AOR doesn't deny; he sounds melodic and with a rough undertone at the same time. The guys are all experienced musicians and clearly know their work.
The guitars and bass lines are kept in a traditional Metal style, whereas the keyboard and sometimes the guitar, is held in a Stratovarius-fashioned neoclassical vein, and the drums are varied enough, especially compared to what this style often has to offer.
Unfortunately the album suffers from underproduction, making the attempted neoclassical and symphonic elements seem incomplete, and that makes the vision of joining Hard Rock and symphonic elements fall short. The muddy and thin sound is just not good enough for an album like this.
Other critical points for this release are the same as for most of Opus Atlantica's fellow Happy Power Metal brother bands out there: not enough variation, heard before, and so forth.
Still, they do it well, to me they are able to create an uplifted feeling inside, and that is worth something, even though the lasting quality of this release is limited, and after many spins this is bound to get a little trivial.
This will appeal to some -but not all- lovers of Heavenly, Stratovarius, Dragonforce, Freedom Call,
Sonata Arctica and similar acts.
Written by
Nina Wednesday, September 22, 2004
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