ANUBIS GATE

The fifth and most recent album from Denmark's premier progressive metal export is sure to have fans talking quite a bit. Jacob Hansen's departure may seem like a pretty massive blow to some Anubis Gate followers, but rest assured - the music on this self titled effort is every bit as strong as any of us would've expected. As a matter of fact, I'd venture to say that Anubis Gate actually exceeds expectations across the board. Sleek, powerful, and modern melodic progressive metal is the name of the game here, and Anubis Gate delivers this style better than any other current act on the scene. Here's an album that's decidedly catchy, melodic, and easily accessible, yet it still contains enough quirky progressive trademarks to satisfy most of the progheads out there. For my money, Anubis Gate is one of the best melodic progressive power metal albums out there.

Rather than replacing Jacob Hansen with a new vocalist, the band instead decided to bring bassist Henrik Fevre up to the microphone; a very good decision in my opinion. Henrik has a very powerful and commanding pair of pipes in my mind, and his distinct delivery is unique from that of many other prog/power metal vocalists. His tasteful and melodic singing is actually one of my favorite aspects of this album. Musically, we're dealing with very sleek and almost commercial sounding progressive metal. Though melodic and polished prog metal typically doesn't appeal that much to me, Anubis Gate delivers the style with so much class and emotion that it's difficult not to be amazed. Catchy yet intricate tracks like "Hold Back Tomorrow", "World In a Dome", or "Golden Days" are absolute masterpieces of the genre.

In many regards, Anubis Gate reminds me of a more modern version of Fates Warning's Parallels or Queensrÿche's Empire. All three of these albums are fantastic examples of top-notch metal music that is both progressive and intricate, yet still easily accessible and melodic. I could easily see this album being right up the alley of fans of the two aforementioned albums, as well as melodic power metal and traditional progressive metal in general. This is much more polished than many fans of 'raw' progressive metal may enjoy, but any open-minded fan of the genre who can handle a sleek production with polished riffs and melodic song structures should be in for a real treat.

I ended up really being blown away by Anubis Gate, and I have a feeling this album will go on to be remembered as one of 2011's strongest progressive metal albums - surely no small feat when you consider how steep the competition is this year! This is a much more polished and accessible slice of melodic prog metal than some fans of the genre may be expecting, but I think it'll be difficult to not be left at least somewhat impressed by this irresistible observation. 4.5 stars are the least I can hand out to Anubis Gate. Although all eyes may be on Dream Theater, Symphony X, and Arch / Matheos right now, every prog metal fan should make sure not to let this gem slip under their radars.