A few Fridays ago on a balmy Houston evening, I witnessed Sonata Arctica perform for the first time. I was excited, not only because I had missed a pair of chances to see them live in the past, but in large part because I had been revisiting the band’s classic era catalog in the week leading up to it —- a mix of dutiful homework and genuine affection for those albums that I had loved so much throughout the band’s early years. It was also somewhat of a banner night for power metal in Houston with Delain and Xandria also on the bill. Outside in the lengthy line and inside in the darkened venue, there was a palpable sense of giddy anticipation from almost everyone in the crowd. I knew something was a little different when most everyone was packed together in a shapeless mound of humanity in front of the stage long before the local opener, collectively staring at a perturbed roadie setting up gear instead of assuming the typical heads down, phones out pose.
My pre-show impression of Sonata Arctica as a live act was colored by various live YouTube clips (most recorded on inadequate phone cameras I know). In those various clips it often seemed that either the keyboard was mixed far too low, or the guitar was horribly muddied. I also noticed a distinct lack of the swelling harmony/ back up vocals that are such an integral part of the band’s studio releases. A lack of live backing vocals for a power metal band is often a critical error —- as much as I loved seeing Blind Guardian live, a clunky crowd sing-a-long could not prove to be an effective replacement for hundreds of multi-tracked Hansi Kursh’s. I always considered Kamelot’s One Cold Winter’s Night live recording setup as the best possible standard for a power metal band: In lieu of having anyone else in the band who could actually sing apart from Roy Khan, Kamelot hired three backup vocalists to ensure that their harmonized choruses would soar. It is however a fantastically expensive luxury to have (even for a single show), and quite impractical to expect a European band to bring over additional musicians for a North American tour. Some bands are fortunate to have harmony vocalists built into their lineup like Sabaton, and others aren’t so lucky. So with those factors in mind regarding Sonata, I braced myself for a slight letdown by tempering my expectations. The stage lights went down and voices around me bellowed in triumph, and the super hyped up guy I had been talking power metal with in between sets leaned over and shook my shoulder with alcohol fueled glee.
Tony Kakko was a vocal magician that night, and a performer unlike any I had ever witnessed. He leapt and bounded across the stage with relentless energy, and threw himself into the lyrics with physical movements that mirrored or reacted to the words he was singing. His voice was accordingly sonorous, full, soaring, and capable of an impressive dexterity in adapting harmony laden lines to a solo vocal approach. When he needed us to help out on the choruses he directed our voices himself, and classics as such “Full Moon” and “Replica” felt like celebrations of power metal’s proclivity in creating joyful euphoria. Newer songs from albums that I had been critical of on this blog such as “Losing My Insanity” and “Blood” actually sounded better live, brimming with a vitality that I now associate with their studio versions. Even the dreaded “X Marks the Spot” was actually fun because Kakko simply sold it so well, his skill as a front man keeping me rapt with attention as he seemed to act out the lyrics. I was caught off guard in realizing that the song actually has a rather good chorus that I had seemingly blocked out before (my feelings on the studio version’s horrible dialogue still stand). I was even stunned that Kakko had the guts to perform such a naked ballad such as “Love” from the recent Pariah’s Child, but he somehow managed to convince a room full of some pretty convincing looking metal fans that it was okay to sway back and forth to a delicate, gorgeous, emotionally soaked song. I lingered long after the show, fan babbled to the Xandria guys a bit, and found myself not wanting to leave. As it always seems, magical nights like that are rare, and over far too quickly.
That the set list was generously full of classics from the band’s debut album Ecliptica was not a random occurrence. As Kakko himself pointed out on stage, the band was celebrating their fifteen year anniversary and in addition to loading their set with songs from that watershed era , they were going to be releasing their re-recording of the album at the end of the month. I spent the weeks leading up to the show listening to that album in particular, and reveling in every second of what can only in retrospect be dubbed an actual masterpiece. Upon its 1999 release, Ecliptica became a hit in Finland (and Japan) in large part due to the tangible influence of native countrymen Stratovarius’ championing efforts, and the market’s hunger for a Hammerfall-fueled resurgent interest in soaring, melodic power metal. I myself was a frustrated metal fan reliant upon newly developing Stateside mail orders to acquire back catalog from any European metal band I could find. I was listening to a weekly college radio show called the Metal Meltdown out of Cleveland that was introducing me to wonderful new stuff at an alarming rate (in that my wallet was continually emptying) —- in one week the show played new music from a trio of bands I had never heard of: Edguy, Nightwish, and Sonata Arctica. It was like water to a lost traveler in the Sahara. It was a year of classic power metal releases. It was a wonderful time to be a fan.
All these years later, its understandably difficult to remember just how strikingly different and fresh Ecliptica and its 2001 follow-up Silence sounded amidst that newly forming power metal resurgence. Sure the band were noticeably influenced by Stratovarius, but where their countrymen played it straight and safe with their take on European power metal, Sonata Arctica displayed a tendency to wildly lean in odd, unexpected directions —- both musically and lyrically. There was something quite charmingly naive and innocent about their approach, as if they were so enamored with their ability to create songs worthy of a record deal that they didn’t bother to pay attention towards sticking to standard genre rules. This was a very young band for starters (scarcely out of their teens), consisting of musicians all to eager to lean on speed and flashy solos, and they had the talent to pull it off, particularly long-departed guitarist Jani Liimatainen. Yet Sonata’s sound all started with the songwriting genius of Kakko himself, who throughout his career has displayed his knack for crafting indelible melodies with sharp hooks, and incredibly focused songwriting that flirted with a variety of tempos. He was a keyboardist, and his songs were built with that instrument serving as the framework for his songwriting, which also meant that melodies had to come first before riffs (often a hallmark of the most melodic of power metal bands). He’s of the same caliber of talent as his good friend Tuomas Holopainen of Nightwish; or Tobias Sammett of Edguy/Avantasia; or Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian: All power metal songwriters who are masters of their craft to such an extent that they simultaneously define and defy the genre. In that regard, Kakko was both a trail blazer and someone who was practically impossible to copy.
As a singer, he was capable of projecting emotive inflections in the simplest of vocal melodies, to such an extent that every song had the potential to come across as some autobiographical account of personal tragedy about a lost-love, or worse. When I first began to listen to the band, I didn’t get around to really investigating the lyrics in the album booklets until after many dozens of listens. I was convinced that these songs were based in part from real life experiences —- and as absolutely ridiculous as that sounds to you today, consider that hardly anyone in power metal at the time was tackling such first person, introverted, real-world subject matter in such an earnest way. Sure you’d occasionally find a love ballad on a random power metal album pre-1999, Stratovarius had a couple in fact, but they were usually paint-by-numbers affairs lyrically speaking, filled with flowery, vague, open-ended diction meant to apply to anyone in particular. In short, they weren’t telling stories. Kakko has been a storyteller throughout his career, a lyricist who writes with an eye for detail and tangible imagery rather than metaphysical conceits. Think about your favorite Sonata Arctica songs… I’m thinking right now of a gem like “Tallulah” from Silence, where Kakko writes from the perspective of a love lorn narrator: “You take my hand and pull me next to you, so close to you / I have a feeling you don’t have the words / I found one for you, kiss your cheek, say bye, and walk away / Don’t look back cause I am crying”. This kind of lyrical perspective was startlingly bold and evocative for a power metal band, so much so that I figured something that gritty and real had to be inspired from his personal life, right?
As it turns out, Kakko was a lyricist of the Joe Elliot mold, he being the famed lead singer of Def Leppard. When I was a budding rock fan in the early nineties, I read an interview with Elliot where he admitted that his lyrics were pure fiction, despite his narrative perspective almost always being in the first person with seemingly autobiographical overtones. I know its not a revolutionary concept, and that many other bands have utilized such a lyrical strategy to ratchet up the tension and passion in their music (Journey comes to mind immediately), but Elliot was the first famous musician that I had ever read such an admission from. Reading it then was a bit of a revelation for me, and made me pay attention to lyric writing in rock music with greater attention, to not be so gullible, and to think about things like narration and perspective and diction in a new light. It made me pay greater attention to Metallica’s Load for example, while many upon its release were writing it off as a sell-out move towards alternative rock, I found myself thinking that it featured James Hetfield’s most thoughtful and resonant lyric writing. So it was with great surprise that I found myself hoodwinked by Kakko, who in the very first interview I had ever read with him revealed that his lyrics were purely fictionalized. Doh! This has of course carried on throughout his career, as he recently pointed out in a late September interview on the Metal Meltdown radio show regarding his penchant for writing songs about relationships and love, “I write a lot of stories, these are not my diary entries by any means. I’ve been with my wife for eighteen years. We started dating back in ’96, the same year this band got started so she’s been there the whole time”.
Suffice it to say that when I finally got around to reading the lyrics, I had some other forehead slapping revelations. Take an Ecliptica classic such as “Full Moon”, which upon a cursory hearing could seemingly be about the emotional troubles and turmoils of a complex relationship told in a very romanticized, metaphor-laden manner. Kakko’s emotional vocals sell it that way dammit! But no, its actually about a man on the cusp of his werewolf transformation trying to isolate himself away from his wife during the full moon (“Run away run away run away!”). There is no larger metaphor there, but I suppose in its own juvenile, kooky way it works as a love song. Similarly there is no actual person named Dana, a fictional character in Kakko’s lyrical universe whose name was culled from Dana Scully of The X-Files (Kakko was a huge fan, as am I). Feel free to read into the lyrics of “Letter to Dana” what you will in that light, but I don’t recall Gillian Anderson posing for anything naughtier than the cover of FHM magazine. Likewise, the “Mary-Lou” of the Ecliptica Japanese bonus track is just a made-up character in a rather distressing tale of teenage pregnancy, yet one that’s sweetly sung. I could go on and on reciting examples of misinterpreted Sonata Arctica lyrics, but the point is that these were all songs sung with such emotional resonance that they started to mean whatever I selfishly wished them to. I’m reasonably confident that other Sonata fans have felt the same way. Why else would we get so throat lumpy and something-in-my-eye about so many of these wonderful songs? I believe its because Kakko sang them with a passion and intensity that to this day seems embedded with painful experience —- despite all proof to the contrary. So powerful is his natural talent that I found myself haunted by a Bette Midler song I couldn’t have cared less about before.
With all that in consideration, I think its okay for any of us to ask why the band is re-recording Ecliptica at all. Well, the short answer is that the aptly dubbed Ecliptica Revisited was done at the request of the band’s longtime Japanese record label, a request the band agreed to as a gesture of goodwill towards a company that had stuck by them since the beginning. Kakko has even commented publicly that the contract they signed for the release stipulated that the re-recording had to be 94% identical to the original release, essentially meaning that they couldn’t re-work the songs into transformed versions or acoustic strip downs. For Kakko, this stipulation not only made it easier for the re-recording to be completed, but helped him to contextualize this release as a simple tribute to the original, as well as a more accurate representation of how these songs are performed live today. Typically within the metal community regardless of subgenre, a re-recording is frowned upon, not only for the often cloudy nature of the reason for it’s existence but more for the larger threat it presents to the legacy of the original. Most of the opinions I’ve seen regarding Ecliptica Revisited seem to align with that way of thinking, and I certainly understand some fans’ puzzlement and frustration (although I think its a waste of energy to get up in arms over a release that clearly will not be replacing the original recording).
As far as how enjoyable the re-recording sounds, well… that depends entirely on what you’re expecting from it. It would be a bit dense to expect an absolutely perfect, note-for-note recreation —- you have to walk into this expecting that certain melodies will be altered, the high notes might not be as high, and there might even be a key change or two. We’re factoring in a difference of fifteen years, the numerous adjustments that have been made over time to the way these songs have been played live, as well as the simple truth that no two recordings can sound alike (different band members, recording facilities, equipment, microphones, etc). Oddly enough I was really excited about this release, I think in large part because it gave me an excuse to simply spend a justifiable chunk of listening time with all these old songs I love so much. I spent the past few weeks going back and comparing the original and this re-recording with back to back listens, in an attempt to try to scope out what I liked about each over the other (a behavior one friend of mine deemed “maniacal”), and came up with an litany of notes.
I’ll spare you the bulk of them, but I’ll clear the decks of my negative impressions right away: I won’t fault the band or Kakko in particular for failing to realize this, but the slight tempo adjustments slowing most of these songs down a touch severely impacted a few in particular, effectively muting their original energy. This is acutely felt on “8th Commandment” and “UnOpened”, where the slower pace drags down Kakko’s vocal delivery in the refrains, zapping the songs of their original broiling anger (and yes, their sense of fun and exuberance). Similarly on “Replica”, a personal favorite of mine, Kakko tends to put the brakes on his delivery of the chorus, robbing the song of its original sense of urgency. I should note that this re-recorded version of “Replica” is almost identical to the manner in which they played it here in Houston, and in a live setting this slower pace worked in the sense that Kakko was able to use the extra time to play the performer and guide us in our sing-a-long. In fact you can hear the pauses where you can just imagine him gesturing to the crowd to join in —- it works in the context of a show where you’re just thrilled to be a part of the song in a meager way, but here on record it comes off as lacking. Its interesting to note that if you compare the song lengths of the originals to the re-recordings, you’ll see that the majority of the track lengths on Ecliptica Revisited have been extended by an average of ten seconds, the cumulative effect of all this slowing down business.
Fortunately the tempo downshift doesn’t hurt all the songs, in fact helping some songs to breathe easier and feel better paced. Cry heresy if you must but I actually find the vocal take on the re-recording of that eternal classic “My Land” far better than the original: Kakko’s enunciation and pacing is better, and the lyrics are more discernible as a result; I also love the alteration he made at 2:30 on the lyric “You can’t keep me away forever”, on the original that line only appears at the end and he doesn’t satisfyingly lean on the “forever” like he does here. I also really love what they’ve added to “Full Moon”, the intro is still as delicate and beautiful as it originally was, but the band gets heavier in the buildup to the galloping verses, giving the song a darker, stormier vibe. The chorus is as bright as ever though, and what I find so incredibly wonderful about Kakko’s vocal approach on it is that he seems to be reveling in its history as a fan favorite. I know its a subtle thing I’m trying to relay, but I hear it in the way he delivers that classic chorus with all its inherent poppiness in such a celebratory manner. Not surprisingly, its the balladry of “Letter to Dana” that benefits the most from the re-recording, with guitars multi-tracked in choice spots, better vocal phrasing, and a greater emphasis on making those lead guitars really capture the epic sweep in a Slash-esque way. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a misstep and a shame that they didn’t turn up the harpsichord effects at 4:25 —- that was such an epic moment in the original and although you can still faintly hear them underneath, they’re not nearly as goose bump inducing here. I also think “Destruction Preventer” comes off a little better here, as they sanded off all the rough edges (Kakko’s wildly high pitched yelps) and added layers of extra guitars and harmony vocals.
All told its likely that some of you won’t hear things the same way I did, and my impression could by colored by the very vivid association I have of certain re-recorded songs sounding similar to their live renditions. If that’s really it, then all I can offer is the suggestion for you to catch the band in concert on a future tour. But we are comparing apples to apples here right? Ecliptica in its original recording is a masterpiece of melodic power metal, or at least as near close to one as you can get (I definitely put it up there), and it would’ve been fine without a re-recording. Yet it doesn’t diminish in the light of this one, in fact, I think its helped me to remember just how special these songs are. I can’t recall the last time I’ve listened to the entire Sonata Arctica catalog as intently as I have in the past month, and I’ve found myself grateful for the opportunity to have my interest renewed. Maybe that coupled with seeing them live has given me a greater tolerance for the flaws of recent albums, and a greater sense of appreciation for all the collective gems and rubies they’ve given to me. Their best work captures the essence of what I love so much about power metal’s potential to uplift my spirits even through the saddest lyric. Its amazing to consider that they’re now regarded as a veteran band within the genre, when for seemingly the longest time they were the up and comers. Fifteen years was a lifetime ago. Happy anniversary Sonata Arctica.
Depending on your perspective of Amaranthe, you’re either really excited for Massive Addictive, or really, really agitated at the mere thought that this unlikely band of Swedes has gotten popular and successful enough to warrant a third album. They are certainly notorious for the sheer contentiousness that surrounds any discussion of who they are and what they do. When I 
All that considered, its amazing just how successfully Amaranthe works as a Frankenstein-esque project, stitching together disparate parts to create something that actually works (surely a monster to many). Morck and Berg combine their experiences in both power metal and melo-death to serve as their musical palette, and are malleable in their songwriting to sketch out smart, unobtrusive, accentuating uses for harsh vocals (courtesy of new screamer Henrik Englund), as well plenty of spotlight time for the completely un-metal Elize Ryd’s sugary, ABBA-Swede pop vocals. Ryd is obviously a necessary component in this whole equation, as its through her unremarkable but pleasant vocals that the band channels their poppiest sensibilities, allowing Berg to deliver his clean vocals as a melodic counterpoint or harmony double up. In typical Amaranthe fashion, Englund’s harsh vocals tend to be used as a counterpoint —- he’s only given one opportunity to handle lead vocals (on “An Ordinary Abnormality”), but of course he’s kept off the chorus. Ryd and Berg command the vocal spotlight of Amaranthe, and it has to be said that their voices tend to sound great together, his vocals are melodic and capable enough of soaring highs as hers, but he’s working in a slightly lower register so as to be complementary, not overpowering. I’ve always had mixed feelings on Ryd, finding her the least impressive vocalist of the three —- and I’ve long contended that she’s used metal as an easier springboard to fame and notoriety than she would have had through trying to make it as a pure pop singer. Its not a criticism, just an honest observation that I’m confident other discerning metal fans would agree with. Do an eye/ear test —- does she radiate metal in any way? Kudos to Morck and Berg for sculpting out a role for her and selling it convincingly (seriously, props).
On Massive Addictive, the band don’t change up the formula they first dreamed up on their debut and expanded on The Nexus, seeking only to further refine the elements that worked and ditch the clunky stuff that didn’t (there’s nothing as awful as the bubblegum “Electroheart” on here). The album’s pop highlight is “Trinity”, the second single that smartly balances chunky-riffs and harsh vocals with a exquisitely sculpted chorus boasting a hook that absolutely will not leave your head. Its musical candy, and that’s what we’re here for right? To rot our ears with the musical equivalent of junk food, because try as I might I cannot understand what 
The album isn’t without missteps though, nothing gravely serious but there are a handful of tracks that either don’t work as pop songs or have annoying tendencies that overpower their enjoyable parts. I’m referring specifically to “Danger Zone”, where a boy-band grade chorus is sandwiched between some very boring harsh vocal led verses; as well as “Unreal”, a song that reminds me of the worst aspects of modern day In Flames with the album’s flattest chorus to boot. There’s also something bothersome about “Skyline”, where I guess my expectations were higher because the title reminded me of Bioshock Infinite (skylines… some of you get it) —- a strange reason to cite but also I’m simply bored by the song, unlike the game. Still, on a twelve track album, there are seven songs that deliver precisely what you’d want from Amaranthe , and four of those are actually pretty great. Not a bad ratio overall, and Massive Addictive is the sound of a band getting better at what they’re doing —- even if it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve written in the past about the value of Amaranthe as a gateway band for non-metal fans to enter our world, and with this album that gateway has only gotten bigger. If someone gets hooked in with a song like “Trinity”, only to find themselves checking out Kamelot via Ryd’s connections to that band, which causes them to love a masterpiece such as The Black Halo as much as I do —- that’s a win. Metal needs gateway bands to survive, and even though Amaranthe are pushing the boundaries of acceptability in our beloved genre, they surely deserve some grudging acknowledgement for filling that role.
Solace of Requiem – Casting Ruin: This is a case where I halfway like a band’s sound and sonic approach in general, but find little in the way of compelling songwriting to keep me coming back. That’s a pretty harsh thing to state right off the bat in a review so I’ll add in these qualifiers: Solace of Requiem seem to simultaneously want to echo Dissection and Morbid Angel and Origin. Some will disagree with me here, but I find little in the way of meaningful intersections between those three bands or the styles they’ve come to represent. So sometimes Solace of Requiem hits me with something interesting in the way of blackened melo-deth, and then a section or so later they’re doing something that resembles technical death metal —- a genre I think I’ve simply gotten bored of. At any given point vocalist Jeff Sumrell might interrupt his rather good blackened grim vocals with outright boring death metal grunts, an alarming change up that isn’t musically justified. Its possible to stick to the former and keep it compelling, bands have been doing it for years, vocal changeups don’t impress anyone except the handful of guys at the local backyard death metal fest. If there was more in the way of musical motifs throughout the songwriting then I’d be able to accept such a glaring flaw, but the songs themselves are collages of riffs and percussion rather than songs with a story to tell.
Noble Beast – s/t: Without exaggeration, this debut album from St. Paul, Minnesota quartet Noble Beast is the best album I’ve ever gotten to review for The Pigeon Post, and daringly enough, might just be one of the best overall albums of 2014 —- no joke, its that good, shockingly so. First off, thanks to reader Eric, who emailed me about Noble Beast a long, long time ago where it was lost amid a clutter of piled up emails. Shamefully I read his midsummer follow-up email asking if I had checked them out yet and as of early September I still had not. Better late than never right? There’s so much to discuss here, how about for starters the fact that Noble Beast are in their very existence a rarity, that as an American power metal band. Unlike fellow countrymen Pharaoh whose take on power metal is very much informed by the grit and grime of American thrash, Noble Beast are clearly influenced by a distinctly European strain of power metal. Upon listening to this album, I’m hearing generous helpings of Blind Guardian, Iron Savior, and even a flavoring of Falconer. Even more startling is just how mature and developed they sound on this debut —- it sounds like the work of a band a few albums deep in their career. It makes sense when you do a little digging and see that a couple of these songs were around since 2010, when the band released their first and only demo. The time in between was spent wisely —- on honing their songwriting craft and creating a musical identity that is separable from their influences, yet willing to embrace them.
arkenhold – Castellum: If you’re in a black metal band from France, chances are you sound something similar to Alcest right? That being the dreamy shoegaze-laden, swirling, fuzzy flavor of black metal that put the country on the map (for good reason) and was later copied by an embarrassing amount of American black metallers (you know its true). Darkenhold are a rare French black metal band that apparently wants nothing to do with the Neige sound and choose to instead pursue a far more traditional strain in line with second wave Norwegian black metal. And judging from a few spins of their newest, Castellum, they’re actually managing to deliver a pretty convincing take on it —- this is a band that I would’ve easily pegged as Norwegian (on that note, still not sure what language the lyrics are in… but its not that pressing of an issue). They really go for a straight down the middle, early 90s approach that takes bits and pieces from Mayhem, Immortal, Burzum, and early Satyricon in equal parts. That may strike some as an exercise in redundancy but I’ve got to give it to these guys, their songs are packed with catchy riffs and a well considered balance between sheer aggression and atmospherics (mostly in the form of clean electric passages with some acoustic undertones… not a lot in the way of keyboards here).
Protokult – No Beer In Heaven: Jeez… what can I say about Protokult? If the title of their debut album doesn’t give it away, this Toronto based, dual-gender vocal helmed folk metal band dabbles in a style that is geared towards those who find Alestorm and the dreadful Korpiklaani palatable. That’s the audience they’re going to get anyway with their choice of album title, despite that their sound actually leans closer towards a not yet fully realized blending of Arkona and Turisas. Its a debut album, so its easy to be forgiving of the sense that if things go right for Protokult, their third and fourth albums won’t sound anything like the musical crockpot that is No Beer In Heaven. Some of these songs are so unfocused that they’re actually jarringly atonal, such as “Heaven Cast Me Out”, where an effective keyboard melody is wasted by vocal lines that are aimless and lacking definable hooks. Co-vocalist Ekaterina Pyatkova is a distinctive, sharp, angular operatic soprano that reminds me of an early Tarja Turunen. On those early Nightwish songs off Angels Fall First that never quite gelled, Turunen’s vocals often spiraled off into an unstructured mess. It was on the subsequent Ocean Born when Tuomas Holopainen began to harness his songwriting abilities together with Turunen’s vocal capacity where he was first able to display both of their respectively brilliant abilities. The same needs to happen for Pyatkova, and hopefully from within the band a songwriter will emerge that can deliver the goods in that sense because she has tremendous raw talent.
Voyager – V: I sat down with this album fully expecting to dislike everything about it, and my inborn prejudices towards modern progressive metal’s tendency to rely on djent and noise-related nonsense was pervading my mind before I actually hit play. Its always such a gratifying experience to be proved wrong in these situations. The manner in which Voyager’s V, (their fifth album now, hence the title, geddit?), is described by reviewers all around the internet and in blurbs that I received from their PR agency is exactly the sort of language that tends to describe bands that do everything but write interesting music (at least for me). Thankfully, the reality is that for all Voyager’s shininess, their Intel factory uber clean guitar chugging, and their keyboard built atmospherics —- this is a band that is smart and savvy enough to realize that its all a waste without sharp, melodically driven, hook-LADEN songwriting. They have that in spades, and I think what makes the songwriting work in terms of playing to their musical strengths is the fact that their singer Daniel Estrin has smooth, expressive, yet powerful range and capacity to use his vocal melodies to anchor most of these songs. The instrumentation is impressive for sure, if you can tolerate its anti-septic delivery and approach, but it all surrounds Estrin’s vocals as the central element of nearly all of these songs.
Opeth – Pale Communion: The Opeth we knew is long gone, and I’m actually thinking that it might be okay. Hear me out on this for a second —- I was NOT a fan of Heritage, and I was also perhaps willfully ignorant of what that album was signaling. On paper it was a good idea, a prog-rock album with seventies influences by a prog-death metal band that had always exhibited that specific influence in their catalog, even produced a few masterpieces in doing so. After my initial few spins through it I remember tempering my reaction by reasoning with myself that it was going to be a one-off experiment in the Opeth canon, and so not to overreact. It was a muddied, ambling mess that lacked crisp songwriting and coherent melodicism; it was the sound of Mikael Akerfeldt over extending (or over thinking) his abilities. But it was alarming then to realize that on Heritage’s supporting tour, the band was largely shying away from past material that emphasized their death metal sound, and Akerfeldt’s public comments towards extreme metal in the media were raising the ire of some, and disheartening others. I sympathized with many of the disaffected and honestly internalized the band’s disinterest in metal as something akin to losing touch with a friend. I summed up my feelings on the whole thing in a little more detail earlier this year when 
Accept – Blind Rage: Four years ago, Germany’s storied metal veterans Accept released a knockout of an album from seemingly out of nowhere; Blood of Nations was as unexpected as it was awesome. I still listen to that record whenever I need an Accept fix (and the fact that I reach for it over Balls to the Walls or Russian Roulette is surprising even to myself). Keep in mind that it was their first album in fourteen years; they were coming off a long period of relative inactivity consisting of two aborted reunions with original vocalist Udo Dirkschneider, and they were enlisting a rather unknown American replacement vocalist in Mark Tornillo. It all seemed like a recipe for mediocrity on paper, but somehow, Wolf Hoffman and company rediscovered their musical mojo. I saw them live on that tour here in Houston, and they were satisfying perfect that night even when down a guitarist (Herman Frank was injured during a fall on stage in San Antonio the night before). But I’ll admit, I thought they stumbled a bit on the 2012 follow-up Stalingrad —- granted there were a couple really strong songs, but the record felt rushed with ideas undeveloped and lacking cohesion (the band admitted as much in interviews later on).
Vintersorg – Naturbål: While writing this review, Firefox tanked out on me, gobbling up what I wrote. Serves me right for running both Spotify and iTunes at the same time, I know… I need a new laptop. But I’m thinking that the crash actually did both you and I a favor, because I was really going on a bit with some unnecessary background info and essentially doing a whole lotta rambling. So I’ll spare you that nonsense and break it down like this: Vintersorg is a project that is really hard to love (or like even). You’ve gotta be committed, and you’ve gotta put in the time and the work, and I really mean work by the way —- this is complex, often obtuse avant garde folk/progressive black metal that is often maddeningly messy. A good Vintersorg song will reveal itself to you after many, many repeat listens after which your brain might begin to be able to process what you’re actually listening to (the not so good songs will just continue to exist as a spaghetti bowl of sound). I myself became a fan with his most accessible album, Comic Genesis, way back upon its release in 2000 when a friend of mine played it for me proclaiming it to be the next best thing to Blind Guardian. I was sold, and proceeded to buy up the existing Vintersorg catalog, as well as that of his pure folk-metal side project Otyg (oh, Vintersorg is a guy, real name Andreas Hedlund, I probably should’ve mentioned that at the top). But Vintersorg moved away from the accessibility of Cosmic Genesis’ to wildly avant garde songwriting approaches through his next few albums, and I toughed it out and found things to enjoy on them, but they certainly weren’t what I originally signed up for.
Unisonic – Light of Dawn: Unisonic is one of those projects where expectations may need to be tempered and aligned to reality. Understandably there is the shadow of Keeper-era Helloween bearing down upon both Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen, but if you walked into the band’s 2012 debut expecting a mirror of those gloried albums then you had no one to blame but yourself for not paying attention. There’s a couple things to point out there in relation to the confused reception that debut received: Firstly, both Kiske and even Hansen had embraced aspects of AOR rock in their post-Helloween careers, Kiske more so of course, but Hansen himself was involved a great deal of power metal records with Iron Savior and Gamma Ray that were far, far more poppy than anything he did with Helloween. That the pair’s reunion was brought about while on tour for Avantasia (the king of AOR drenched metal thesedays) should speak volumes to that effect. Secondly, I think a lot of people were infatuated with idea of Hansen/Kiske being some magical songwriting pairing, when in reality Michael Weikath had a fair amount of input on that front back in the Helloween days. So the first Unisonic album was often a laid, back, drivin’ in the sun pop-rock record more than anything, and it when judged on its own merits it was a rather good, albeit spotty affair. Power metal, however, it was not. 
Anathema – Distant Satellites: Metal writers/reviewers/bloggers cover Anathema these days in part because of the band’s past metal heritage as part of the Peaceville three of English doom metal, but I believe the greater reason is that this band has been on a tear since 2010 in terms of releasing amazing new music that’s really worth talking about. If you haven’t gotten to enjoy their past two efforts you’re doing yourself a disservice (“Untouchable” Pts 1 & 2 together from 2012’s Weather Systems topped 
Hammerfall – (r)Evolution: First off, just for my own sanity’s sake, I’m going to refer to Hammerfall’s new album as Revolution, I don’t care if its incorrect, I hate purposeful grammatical cuteness like the kind being employed here. And I’ll just cut to the chase here, because you likely know who Hammerfall is and what they’re all about —- this is neither the best Hammerfall album, nor the worst, and that ultimately might be its achilles. There are going to be a lot of fans who will highly rate Revolution solely because it comes as the long awaited follow-up to 2011’s Infected, as experimental an album as a band like Hammerfall can make. That album’s release predated The Metal Pigeon blog, so I never wrote about it, but while I didn’t find it nearly as annoying as some did, it was admittedly not what I wanted to hear from them either. The band seemed to sense that from the majority of their fanbase as well and so after their brief hiatus decided to make a concerted effort to harken back to the Glory to the Brave/Legacy of Kings classic era, replete with the return of Andreas Marschall handling the cover art, which also sees the return of their mascot Hector the Knight.
A little over a decade now, back in the middle of 2004, a relatively upstart British based power metal band released an album called Sonic Firestorm, an eight song masterpiece of flawlessly written and recorded power metal that I still believe merits inclusion in any list of the top ten power metal albums of all time. It was a breathless, invigorating, joyful, life-affirming listen, with all the best qualities of positive-leaning power metal rolled into enthralling songwriting. It was even rather groundbreaking at the time —- people may forget, but ex-Dragonforce drummer Dave Mackintosh employed a battery of blast beats in his percussive attack that was the perfect complement to those thousand miles an hour guitar riffs and solos. It won the band the right to re-brand themselves as extreme power metal, a concept that really shook up the power metal world.
Alot has been made of the presence of Trivium’s vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy on this album, but once you hear the results it all makes sense and chances are that like me you’ll really appreciate his contributions. They come in the form of gritty yet melodic backing vocals on gems like lead single “The Game”, where he appears alongside Hudson on the pre-chorus bridge with a rather excellent vocal take. Heafy is also present on my personal album highlight, the adrenaline pumping “No More”, where he is skillfully employed on another pre-chorus bridge, injecting some counter-balance in the form of an aggressive lower register to Hudson’s bright, upper range. The two vocalists employ the same point/counter-point technique on the thrashy “Defenders” to soaring effect.
I recently had drop in my lap a copy of the newest live album by the Scorpions, their 2013 MTV Unplugged CD/DVD combo recorded live in Athens at the Lycabettus Theatre. It was an interesting release, with atypical track listing, featuring re-workings of some of the band’s classics, deep album cuts, along with a few new songs. I’m not trying to sell you on it… its worth checking out on YouTube or Spotify, but some of the re-workings through “cajun” or bluesy-country filters weren’t entirely successful. Also there’s simply no way you can convincingly deliver “Rock You Like A Hurricane” in an acoustic setting, as the lyric “the bitch is hungry… so give her inches and feed her well” certainly demands a massive wail of amplification behind it (if only to sonically mask its oblique misogyny). It was however cool to hear Klaus Meine deliver some songwriting anecdotes behind hits like “Big City Nights” (it’s what came to their mind when seeing the Tokyo skyline for the first time), and “Passion Rules the Game” (about Las Vegas apparently), and the documentary included within got me waxing nostalgically about the legacy of a band that is often misunderstood and very overlooked.
I’m not naive enough to suggest that the Scorpion’s golden 70s/80s era is not recognized as classic by rock and metal fans/media around the world, because it clearly is —- but what’s overlooked is just how incredibly deep and rich the band’s latter day studio output has been. And by latter day I’m not referring to the early nineties Crazy World album with its monumental hit “Wind of Change”, and the beautiful “Send Me an Angel” —- nor am I including their 1993 Face the Heat album (for all its relative lack of success, it’s videos were on MTV a lot). For the purposes of this article, I’m focusing specifically on the Scorpions’ studio output from 1996 and onwards. These include ignored albums like 1996’s Pure Instinct and 2004’s Unbreakable, and much maligned efforts like 1999’s Eye II Eye. Mainstream music press coverage during the majority of this era had disappeared for the band in all but the most steadfast of markets (mostly in Europe and Asia), and even the rock/metal press tended to take only glancing listens at the band’s new music during this time. Its unfortunate because what most people thought of as irrelevant new albums by a band entering its dinosaur period were really interesting, albeit admittedly flawed albums by a veteran band aware of their strengths, yet keen on experimentation. There were also gems aplenty on all these releases, but if you’re wary of diving in blind, let me shed some light on this particular era of the Scorpions nearly fifty year career by spotlighting the following ten cuts, done so in the spirit of the wonderfully goofy title of their 1989 greatest hits album, The Best of Rockers ‘N’ Ballads:
Delain – The Human Contradiction: First things first, kudos to said reader who persuaded me to give Delain’s newest album a shot, because this was a band that had failed to impress me at any point in their career previously. In fact, their last album featured a single/video that actually made me cringe, the pallid “We Are the Others”, a heart on sleeve “anthem” directed squarely at the hearts of this band’s core audience, namely, disaffected rock/metal adoring teenage girls (and I suppose some guys as well). How can I be so blasé about a band like Delain while I sing the praises of the biggest female fronted band of them all in Nightwish? Simple: Because the latter is a vehicle for the self-centric artistic motivations and confessions of one Tuomas Holopainen, who also happens to be a uniquely brilliant songwriter whose lyrical voice I’m fascinated by. As we all know by now, the female voice singing Holopainen’s songs is less important than the actual content/context of songs themselves (be honest, when you read the lyrics of “Ever Dream”, do you innately hear Tuomas or Tarja’s voice?).
Nightmare – The Aftermath: I’ve always wanted to like France’s Nightmare. On paper I really should, since they’re supposedly right up my alley: They’re a hybrid trad/power metal band from a country that is fairly most associated with post-black metal ala Alcest; and their longtime vocalist Jo Amore is a fairly decent blend of Dio and Jorn Lande (himself a pretty good Dio stand-in). They also have the respectable career back story of coming back from a thirteen year absence in 1999 to give it another go after their record label in the mid-eighties flamed out and took the band’s enthusiasm with it. That fact alone has always had me rooting for them and giving each new release a few spins. So it was halfway through my fourth spin with this new album when I remembered why it took my American power metal fan’s guilt to muster enough patience to sit through a new Nightmare offering. I’m glad The Aftermath ended up in this reviews roundup, with an emphasis on these reviews being shorter, because I’d be stumped for what to really say in depth about this album. My biggest problem with Nightmare overall has always been their lack of good songwriting/songwriters —- not to suggest that there is “bad” songwriting on display here, this is passable metal that wouldn’t be a damp towel on the beer drinkin’ in the garage good times of your average pack of metal fans, but it doesn’t pass the most important test for me, namely the ability to enjoy the album by oneself in the car or on headphones. During my last play through, I actually reached a point where Amore’s vocals began to grate on me, and that was more a result of his having to sing over go nowhere riffs/melodies and aimless songs. Hooks in songwriting actually need to bell curve up, you know… resemble a friggin’ hook.
Goatwhore – Constricting Rage Of The Merciless: This is the first Goatwhore album I’ve listened to since 2006’s A Haunting Curse, and I’m coming away pleasantly surprised. I was never personally big on Goatwhore, but I’ve enjoyed them in passing over the past decade plus because I grew up alongside friends and roommates who were VERY big on Goatwhore. My mind is going back in particular to one Bill Hendricks, who was big on all things NOLA metal related in general. He introduced myself and others to the feral pleasures of Goatwhore albums and live shows and it just became one of those touchstones that we randomly had in our metal educations. In the interest of full disclosure I’ve developed a bit of an inborn prejudice towards bands with purposefully schlock horror-ish names, I suppose because when you grow up it feels a lot more sillier to proudly proclaim that you listen to a band called Cannibal Corpse than it did in sixth grade. But I still appreciate a whole host of bands that fall under that “juvenile” tag (and let’s be honest, how mature did the name Megadeth ever seem really?).
Septicflesh – Titan: Remember how just a few sentences ago, I was going on a bit about bands with juvenile sounding names that might defy expectations by releasing adventurous, experimental music contrary to what you were expecting (ala Rotting Christ)? It must really be a Greek thing then, because Septicflesh is another band that hails from the inadequately governed mean streets of Athens, and they too play an unorthodox take on traditional death metal. Whereas Rotting Christ utilize heavy injections of Greek folk music and black metal repetitive hypnotics in their music, Septicflesh swing in the other extreme direction by infusing experimental symphonic elements into the fabric of their songwriting. Think modern day Therion’s classical trajectory meeting Behemoth’s blackened death metal, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect here. I’m surprised at just how wonderfully challenging Titan is as a sheer musical experience. Simultaneously and conversely punishing, exultant, and beautiful —- there’s a lot to absorb here. But before I start going off with superlatives galore, I’m told by those who know that many a Septicflesh fan has found this album to be a step below their previous album, 2011’s The Great Mass, which I have not listened to. So with that in mind its perhaps fair to leave in the possibility of a different comparative opinion depending on your perspective.
Xandria – Sacrificum: This may sound strange, but I think one of the best things Germany’s Xandria has had going for them is that at any one point in time when I’ve listened to them, I’ve had no idea who their singer was. And they’ve had more than a few —- the new singer Dianne van Giersbergen is their fifth in the band’s now seventeen year history (for reals, on both accounts)! The side effect of a female fronted band having such a rotating cast of vocalists (particularly in the past couple years) is that the attention they receive is largely for the music itself rather than the appearance of the singer. If that sounds cynical, its because its a statement reflecting a great deal of reality —- after all, magazines don’t have those “Hottest Chicks In Metal” features for no reason right?
Brainstorm – Firesoul: My apologies to Andy B. Frank and the gang, it wasn’t that I willfully ignored you back in April, but your new album Firesoul had the misfortune of arriving directly in the midst of my receiving the new Edguy and Insomnium albums. Its not that I like those bands better… well, actually I do, but those were two releases that held the possibility of changing styles for both bands, for better or worse. I had to find out and so they immediately received my full attention, but in a way that’s complimentary towards you guys, because I’ve never had a reason to be concerned about what to expect on a new Brainstorm offering. You guys always deliver quality melodic power metal loaded with hooks and often impeccable choruses, and Andy sounds as ageless as ever. Consistency in producing good work is rare and admirable, and Brainstorm stand in the company of a select few in the power metal world in that regard. I love you guys.
Triptykon – Melana Chasmata: Tom G. Warrior is back yet again with his second Triptykon album, and its also one of the most complex, densely written records of the year —- and that could be a great thing or a horrible thing depending on how well you can digest this stuff. In case you’re out of the loop, Triptykon was born in 2008 from the ashes of Celtic Frost, and in spirit and in sound it serves as a spiritual successor to that legendary band. Personally I’ve been a fan of Warrior’s work in general, even finding a few things to like about the infamous Cold Lake album (no, not “Dance Sleazy”), so my perception of this album might be vastly different to newcomers who should probably start off with one of the classic Celtic Frost releases. Of course a familiarity in the complexities of bands like Emperor would be a plus in being able to process the sheer unorthodoxy that is on display here. I really do like this album and feel that its one of the stronger records of 2014 overall, but it took me well over a dozen spins front to back to even remotely begin to feel that way. And I don’t mean a dozen cursory spins, I mean a dozen sit down with your headphones strapped on and close your eyes kinda spins. Its a tough nut to crack.
I didn’t know what to make of the K.K. Downing announcement way back in 2011 declaring that he was hanging up his guitar and retiring from Judas Priest —- and apparently, music altogether. Maybe this makes me sound like a jerk, but I wasn’t really bothered one way or another, because unlike the recent albums of Iron Maiden, which have individually enthralled me in their own wonderful ways, Priest hadn’t really wowed me with any of their recent post-reunion work. Okay, I’ll admit that I really loved hearing some of the Angel of Retribution songs in concert when the band played Houston with Heaven and Hell back in 2008 (in particular the ballad off that album, “Angel”, really was something incredible live). But the follow-up in 2008, Nostradamus, was a head-scratcher of a conceptual album —- the sound of a band overreaching their abilities. Look, there was little chance of anyone ever mistaking Judas Priest for Andrew Lloyd Weber (or heck, Queensryche circa 1988), but save for a couple pretty good songs in “Prophecy”, “Persecution”, and the catchy title track I found that the rest of the album was a wash. I think that there were a couple problems with Priest’s comeback plan in general, the first being that they simply waited too long to make a reunion happen, whereas Maiden’s timing with the dawn of the millennium was nigh-perfect, and secondly the artistic output wasn’t coming fast enough. By the time Downing left the band, Priest had only done two studio albums with Halford —- hardly the amount needed to redevelop a writing partnership. ‘Priest classic’ was back for six years, and apparently only six.
So Halford and Glenn Tipton had to pick up the pieces of this whole situation. Not only were Priest down a guitarist in a distinctively two guitarist band, but they also had lost a major songwriting partner in Downing. They recruited Richie Faulkner to fill in on guitar for the Epitaph world tour (remember all that noise about it being Judas Priest’s last world tour?), and during that trek they began to realize that they had stumbled onto a potential candidate to permanently replace Downing. The real test would be the writing process, of which they purposefully slowed down and refused to declare a release date to the press. Faulkner was not averse to writing ideas on the road, which was new to Halford and Tipton. The results of jamming on the road followed by spending the next two years carefully working together as a newly gelling writing team resulted in a lengthy delay to, well, July 2014. And its finally here, the first Judas Priest album in history to not feature K.K. Downing’s riffs and songwriting, and Priest’s first new album in six long years. And here’s the funny thing, I wasn’t anticipating this album at all, had marginal hopes for it at best, and had already developed a nitpicky pre-release criticism about the artwork looking too “on the nose” —- yet here I am, writing the following words that will tell you that this is the best Judas Priest album since Painkiller. I’ll put it another way, this might very well be a classic Judas Priest album. Unbelievable.
The album opens with a track that proves as much, as Faulkner and Tipton are all over “Dragonaut”, an anthemic beast of a song that matches classic machine-precision Priest riffage with blazing tradeoff solos. The bottom end is beefed up as well —- the band simply sounds heavier than I remember, an attribute accentuated by carefully crafted songwriting on display here, where guitars are allowed to breath, Halford has plenty of space to work with, and the hooks land right in your gut. It’s followed by the pre-release title track single which I somehow managed to avoid listening to in the months preceding the album release, a likeable mid-tempo stomper that clears the palette for one of the best songs on the album, the truly inspired “Halls of Valhalla”. I love everything about this song, from the distant echo-ing intro to the aggressively complex stick work of Scott Travis, to Halford’s most satisfying lyric and vocal take since the Painkiller days. He sounds ageless here, unleashing classic Halford-ian panoramic screams you didn’t know a sixty-something had in him, while delivering deft vocal work on the verses segments, a grand metal orator. It would perhaps be a misappropriation to say that Priest were influenced by modern trad or power metal, but one can’t help hearing hints of Blind Guardian for example on a song like this (and not just because of the “Valhalla” reference). That perfect song is followed by the nearly as epic “Sword of Damocles” which features one of the most surprising misdirections in Priest history: A bluesy bend to the guitar passages makes you think we’re in for a road-warrior type anthem, but the chorus unfolds with an uplifting, surging melodic hook with a Manowar-ian lyric, “Truth will find its reward / If you live and die by the sword!”. Somewhere in Jersey, Joey DeMaio is shaking his fist in a jealous rage.
If you’ve been needing something to be thankful for lately, here’s something: Stefan Weinerhall, guitarist/songwriter of power metal’s mighty Falconer is still writing and recording music. I only bring this up because it appears that this was in doubt for quite a long period of time following the release of the band’s last album, 2011’s Armod. For a short while, all we had to go on in terms of evidence that points to this was Weinerhall’s own cryptically worded message in the latest press release announcing their new album, in which he stated, “After an eight-month complete break from music on the verge of quitting it, I finally returned with a feeling of hunger, power and commitment to the songwriting.” But in a recent 
Finland’s melodic death metal brush artists Insomnium are perhaps my most beloved metal “discovery” within the past few years. I stumbled across them some time after the release of their 2011 album One For Sorrow, an elegiac, melancholy touched masterpiece. I think its easy for writers to throw that term around often, it happens quite a bit within metal reviewer circles —- but I really mean it in relation to that album. I was transfixed by every note within, and when I worked my way backwards through their discography, eagerly devouring the similarly styled Across the Dark (2009) and the noticeably more aggressive Above the Weeping World (2006), my appreciation for the band grew stronger and deeper. By October of 2012 I had my first opportunity to see the band live, who had an opening slot for Alestorm (the very idea) and Epica. I’ll never forget that show, I wrote earnestly about my experience that night in an admittedly unnoticed 
I tell you all that not only to rectify the lack of detail in that older Insomnium/Sentenced article, but to express to you just how deep my personal roots have grown with this band. I’m writing an album review on the surface, but I’m almost pained to write one for fear of deconstructing the album past the point of —- well, the way I want to enjoy it. In keeping with the way I handled my previous review, for Sabaton’s Heroes, I’ll just come right out and declare this: This is a great Insomnium record, filled with the kind of emotionally charged songwriting and artistry that we now expect from the band. But then haven’t I already expressed that I felt their past three albums were great? Yes I have, and if that nullifies any sense of relative objectivity for you then I’m sorry. And really, what else can I say? This is a band on a roll, with an unshakeable sense of identity and a musical nucleus of guitarist/vocalist Ville Friman and vocalist/bassist Niilo Sevanen that is perhaps the strongest in melodic death metal since the Stromblad-Gelotte pairing during the classic In Flames era.
The next two tracks, “Revelation” and “Black Heart Rebellion” are as starkly contrasting as day and night; the former is a dreamy blend of acoustic guitars and slower, patient tempos with crescendoing clean electric melodic runs, Sevanen’s vocal performance at times softening to a near spoken word whisper. Its a startlingly spiritual lyric at work here too, a Sevanen penned hymn that seems to touch on the Cosmos-themed concepts of being aware of one’s own place in the universe, that “This is the gift of man / The key to see it all / The hidden wonders / Hope in despair”. Alternately in both music and lyrics, “Black Heart Rebellion” is perhaps the most punishing and brutal track on the album, with its black metal like flurry of near tremolo riffs, blastbeat percussive tempos, and Sevanen’s vicious growling about the parallels between “Morning star, angel of the dawn” and “Desolate is the path of self-believers”. Yet Friman still writes in moments of space for quiet melodic reflections, such as Vanhala’s hushed solo at 4:53 —- the kind of thing that is such a distinctive Insomnium signature, their musical calling card if you will. The lengthiest track on the album is the similarly black metal-touched “The River”, where I love the way the guitars anticipate the vocals by a fraction of a second at the 1:27 mark and the resulting effect crackles with excitement. Those stately verse sections unleash into a tremolo riff fueled chorus section with some surprising melodic change-ups.
I have other favorites as well, “The Promethean Song” being chief among them, its chiming acoustics and slow tempo-ed bed of bass heavy guitars preceding a Sevanen/Friman vocal trade off where the latter opens up his pipes to higher ranges than we’ve seen from him before. He sounds good, really good actually, and he knows how to write vocal melodies that suit his tone (a rare skill in guitarist first songwriters). I adore the bridge section that occurs at the 4:00 minute mark with accented drumming, Sevanen’s harshly barked out vocals and perhaps the album’s best guitar solo. Then there’s the title track serving as the album closer, its a bass driven, rumbling beast of a song where heavy guitars suddenly swing up and crunch down to usher in a rather inspired Sevanen / Friman vocal duet on the refrain, “And I feel it in my heart / And I know it in my mind / That’s all there is, ever will be”. Its another song where Friman ruminates upon the stardust-y nature of our existence, a sentiment I entertain myself with on occasion and feel rather connected to. Incidentally, Friman makes his rent by working a day job as a scientific researcher, so if you’ve been wondering at the inclusion of science meets spirituality themes within the lyrics, that goes a long way towards explaining it. And of course there’s “Ephemeral”, which we heard late last year as a standalone single, and its dressed up here in a few more layers of guitars and production work, but still sounds just as vibrant, fresh, and ear wormingly catchy as it did originally. It features my favorite lyric on the album, “Dying doesn’t make this world dead to us / Breathing doesn’t keep the flame alive in us”, and its a rarity among Insomnium’s catalog —- a truly anthemic song.