Three years ago this Swedish band already surprised with probably their best album called ‘New Era’. Now the fifth cd is ready and is at the moment a regular meal for my ears. After quite some listening sessions, I’m not sure if this one tops the predecessor. I can only say that the style didn’t change and that the songs are again of a good quality.
Pure progressive rather technical (power) metal with a lot of symphonic elements are still the main ingrediënts. Singer Mike Andersson has the ideal voice for music like this, he controls the clean singing as well as the slightly rawer style with an edge. The guitars sound rather low tuned and the solos of Patrik and Stefan are o.k. Fans of bands like Evergrey, Symphony X and stuff like that will have pleasure with this new album. At first you probably have to get used to the bit complex, kind of chaotic sounding style, but after a few spins you get used to that and then the beauty of the music blossoms. The one song that is rather straight forward power metal is “All For Metal”. This is a track that could have been written by Gamma Ray or Primal Fear and is an ode to metal music.
Not a bad start of the new year for progressive metal music lovers.
Tracklist:
01. A New Design
02. Futuristic Psycho
03. Don’t Close Your Eyes
04. All For Metal
05. Voice Of Reason
06. Thunders Of Extreme
07. Needle In the Eye
08. In Silence We Scream
Playing time: 49:00
Release date: 8 January, 2016
Label: Dead End Exit Records
Website: www.cloudscape.se
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