GLORIOUS COLLISION

As sad a trend as it is, many bands that stay around as long as Sweden's Evergrey tend to slip as time goes on, falling at some point along the way. A band whose earlier work dominates the Scandinavian power metal scene, Evergrey seems to have taken a fall from glory. Instead of the great comeback record some may have been predicting, 'Glorious Collision' turns out to be a somewhat weak, uninspired collection of anthem rock tracks, that fails to capture the imagination. Unfortunately, the theme of falling may not just apply to the album's artwork.

Anyone familiar with the term 'AOR' will know what to expect here. The music is deeply rooted in the arena rock that lay slave to each set of white, middle-class ears during the 1980s. The music is almost always focused on the vocals and melodic lines, often giving the instruments the semblance of a backing track to Tom Englund's vocal work, whose strong delivery comprises the album's greatest strength. The songwriting is kept basic to point of being called 'barebones', and to make things worse, the album tries to cover this with an overly polished production, which could work beautifully for a more technically vibrant work, but makes a good deal of the music here feel even more lifeless.

Each song follows a nearly identical pattern, with little exception. A instrumental introduction opens up the song, usually promising some sort of interest to the song. Unfortunately, by the time Englund's vocal work comes in, the instruments recoil and let the singing do almost all of the work. Each song is built around a chorus that- more often than not- is the highlight of the song. while there is melodic prowess here with much of the chorus-writing, it can often feel as if one familiar song is replaying over and over again throughout thirteen tracks of tired arena rock. With that in mind, the songs begin being judged not on their inherent quality, but on how different they manage to sound from the rest. While the album's opener 'Leave It Behind Us' works the best to describe the musical output Evergrey has produced with 'Glorious Collision', the highlight would ultimately be the semi-acoustic track 'Free', which opens with a simple keyboard idea, and is driven by some beautiful acoustic work. Unfortunately, this fleeting inspiration is only made the more enjoyable due to it's companions, which have much less to say.

What the album gets right however; it gets right very well. As has been said, Tom Englund is a fantastic vocalist for this type of melodic rock, and although the instruments almost never prove to be more than a backing track for Englund's powerful delivery, his voice carries the better parts of 'Glorious Collision' along rather nicely. 'Glorious Collision' is certainly an album that introduces Evergrey in a new light (with an almost entirely new lineup) but unless the band makes some serious improvements and opts to balance out their sound in favor of greater instrumental work, Evergrey may very well fall completely into relative obscurity.

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