Metal Reviews

Actually, after one listen I'm not very pleased... I love all their albums....but I think this one is not their best effort, although it's good...

No, not their best, but it's still very good.

I think they ran out of ideas... I miss a bit of originality, something that they've acomplished in their last three albums, not writing the same kind of riffs....this one sounds a bit uninspired...

But I will give it more time... Evergrey albums need to grow bit....

Just downloaded it. Shame on me! I just couln't resist. Right now I'm listening it for the first time. Hmmm... first impression is very good! We'll see how it keeps up.

It is a good bit heavier than the Inner Circle, that's for sure. But it does not sound as spectecular as Recreation Day, yet.

I listened to this yesterday about 4 times and it's fucking great. The Inner Circle was great too but it's so different from this. Evergrey took some criticism for TIC for being too mellow and eventually after 4 or 5 listens it gets boring. I can agree with that to a certain extent but TIC is still a great album in my book. The new album is exactly what I was expecting after TIC and I'm not disappointed. Tom changed his vocal delivery on some songs and he sounds great. All songs are great, some more than the others, the lyrics are great too and so is the musicianship. In my opinion Evergrey is one of the most consistent bands these days.

So...do you like it?

Nah, medium stuff.

Dissapointed!

These guys along with Kamelot i consider the best in prog metal, they still haven't made a bad album, and this new one kick ass once again, better then The Inner Circle, and one of the few bands in which keeping the same sound doesnt hurt theyre music, keep it up, another top highlight of 2006 for me. :twisted:

I downloaded this about a month ago, only found time to go through it propery now. I'm up to track 6. The only other Evergrey i've heard is a few songs from Recreation Day. Some were good, some were not.
I dont know if they have sounded this way the whole time, but this band sounds very mainstream. I find their genre to be borderline hard rock, but mostly melodic metal with prog and nu-metal influences. Its never a good sign when a metal band's song times for an album average around 3:30...

I'm not sure yet, still undecided but i will continue with the rest of the album

This is their "mainstream" album, as some people call it, though it's far from worse. I define them as dark power/prog and certainly don't hear any nu-metal or hard rock.

Recreation Day is arguebly their best album, no weak song. Even Dark Discovery (first album) is very good in spite of the shoddy production. Try The Inner Circle for more progressive/atmospheric album.

The new album is different in that it is more direct and heavy. The idea was to make shorter songs to play at gigs. I don't think this is mainstream, Evergrey were mainstream long before MMA. Give it some time, even try previous album and then return to MMA.

In my first post comments, it may have sounded like they were negative, but they werent. Just my opinions so far. I still think MMA sounds mainstream for melodic metal...too easy on the ears is how i would put it. The songwriting is the only thing which i feel gives it a slight nu-metal feel, mainly with the eletronica in some songs and the shortness of some tracks.

Best track i think, is "At a Loss For Words", followed by either "Lost" or "I Should". The best thing about this album, and for Evergrey for that matter is the vocalist. His voice is just fantastic and makes the tracks so much better. I'm really drawn to his voice.

Overall, its a good album. Consistent, with no real crappy songs at all. Probably will grow on me more as i play it a few more times. My preliminary score after my first good listen would be 90.5/100 (my scores do not reflect the same quoting scores as metalreviews). To give an indication of what 90.5/100 would be....

i gave DragonForce's Inhumane Rampage 93/100
Edguy's Rocket Ride 94.5/100
Lacuna Coil's Karmacode 85.25/100
Bloodbound's Nosferatu 90.25/100, and
Majesty's Hellforces 93.25/100

if any of that helps....