CHRONICLES OF THE IMMORTALS - NETHERWORLD (PATH ONE)

As I said before in other reviews about this band, Vanden Plac carved their own path in prog metal zone since the beggining 20 years ago, being today one of the respected bands in this field,. I like all their albums, is one of the few prog metal bands from old school that has a constant quality in their song writting and implicit the releases all are above good. The latest album of the band is Chronicles of the immortals part I issued this year in february. Well, I must admit, even I like the album I was not impressed at all by the arrangements and overall atmosphere. The last 3 albums I found them ok, good for sure, but the magic moments of their '90s period is kinda far. The god thing, Farr of grace and Beyond daylight are corner stones of prog metal, har to beat them in terms of sound , songwritting, tight musicinship, so their lates album is for sure not their best. The album is far as I understand a concept based on a story by author Wolfgang Hohlbein and is a battle between heaven and hell through eyes of the immortals, an ok story to me, nothing more nothing less. As always on every Vanden Plas album the vocal parts are impressive, Andy Kuntz is definetly one of the better singers in this field for more then 20 yers, here he does no wrong again, his tone, his voice, from mellow to more angry is excellent, being on every release the cherry on the cake. The duel between guitars and keybords while are good, are no close to perfection like on their older stuff. The music is constructed on same coordonates as on previous 2-3 albums,Andreas Lill heavy riffs over Günter Werno waving keybords and beating drums. No particular pices is better then other, maybe The Black Knight is little more catchy then the rest. All in all decent, good but not among their most intrsting ones like first 4 albums. Still a band to watch in the future, thay have the same line up since the beggining and that si for sure a winning point in any bands career for that matter they have constant quality on every album. 3 stars for sure.