Heavy Metal, Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Symphonic Metal. Well you get some of it all when you listen to Winterlong's second album The Second Coming.
The person behind all the songs, guitars, bass and additional keys is Thorbjörn Engholm; he's also the only member left in the band from the debut. Many songs has a dominant guitar but it fits in nicely with the style of the tracks, and let me just say that he can and does play a very solid guitar indeed.
After a short presenting intro we get hit by
Twisting Your Tail, which features fantastic detailed drumming, and some very cool alternative keyboard passages. A mid-tempo track with lots of change in structure and some well balanced lead guitar lines.
Northman treats the Viking theme in great style, some epic lyrics sung in a powerful way by Mikael Holm who overall delivers a great performance on this album, he's voice fits the music perfectly and I like the very intense style he performs with.
The melodic guitar solo has a relaxing mood to it, and the mid-section guitar lead line is extremely catchy making this a great track.
Retaliation has a clear Power Metal profile in the beginning of the song, but as with so much else on this record the picture develops into something more. Epic sections with a down to earth tempo, fast guitar interludes, progressive passages with detailed drums and a soothing key solo. Its wise to be on your mark when listening to this song, it's really complex in nature.
We'll Be Immortals is one of the fast songs on The Second Coming, galloping drums and a really heavy rhythm guitar lays the basic ground. The cool way the vocals are incorporated into the rhythm works splendid, the main chorus seems to lower the intensity of the tracks flow, but nevertheless a good song with great underlying keyboard effects.
Ride Into The Skies has a cool aggressive profile and comes out really powerful, on the other hand I think the track would have been better if the extensive guitar parts where better worked into the song and a clearer thin line running through it had been created.
This aspect of slightly unstructured passages and a too packed approach is an element that comes forth in some songs, instead of putting so many melodies and arrangements into 4 or 5 minutes, it could have worked better if the length of some tracks had been a bit longer, making more room for balanced experiments and changes in the structure, so that they would have had a better flow to them.
In
Evolution we are meet by a very complex track filled with great grooving bass lines, varied guitar parts and some very well arranged keyboard solo's. The lead guitar has a central role and gives the song just that extra interesting aspect, also the drums is a pleasure to listen too, compact in a great way.
The change towards the end with a whole new chorus seems a bit odd fitting, but tiresome is at least not a word that fits the description at all.
When evaluating the lyrics I find that they could have been a bit more inspiring. Tales of warriors and religious questions are not bad themes but I miss something really exiting in some of the songs. Overall judged, the lyrics get pass the quality test for fair without serious problems, the mysterious aspects in the songs works pretty well.
The drums on the record are quite equally shared by Andreas Lill (Vanden Plas) and Anders Johansson (Hammerfall), both putting out world class performances, high on the technicality scale. The keyboard solos give the album a refreshing and varied side, skilfully performed by Mistheria.
It's a shame that the bass doesn't play a more important part in creative aspect of the songs, and that the production of it is pretty low. The other instruments have been given a powerful production, with a very tight profile.
All in all this is an album with a pretty high overall quality but missing a couple of really fantastic songs. If you are into Heavy Metal coupled with Power Metal elements and progressive twists then the chance of you liking this album is pretty high.
This is certainly a very interesting, innovative and extremely well performed album.
Written by
Tommy Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Show all reviews by TommyRatingsTommy: 6.5/10Members: No members have rated this album yet.
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