POLARIZED

This album is a great moment for IVANHOE,in my opinion their best effort,especially because of one fantastic vocalist called ANDY B FRANCK!He is absolutelly brilliant,unfortunatelly this is his last album with IVANHOE,after album he formed SYMPHORCE in a more metallic veine and gives also his services on BRAINSTORM German band cd's too!The production of this album is one of the best I' ve ever heard,it's simply exceptional with perfect mettalic sound for guitars and excellent production work for keyboards !!But,FRANK explodes at maximum with a wonderful strong and powerful voice on the muscled tracks where he is smashing and also Franck's voice can be so soft and nice on emotional songs where he gives a dramatic performance-this is what I call a gifted and talented vocalist !On HOLLOW,the voice had some unbelieveble melodic inflections,superbe and dramatic!WHEN I'M OLD is one of the best prog metal ballad thet I know,a majestic ballad where the listener is transported in a very emotional mood,because the dramatic,passionated and intense vocals are touching the sensitivity and feeling at 200 %!Simply one of the most wonderful progressive power ballads ever made,a song of a huge quality!I don't know how pupular is this album among the prog comunity,but seing the fact that POLARIZED has only so few reviews I realise it's not so well known!It's a shame ,it's a pity,this album is definitelly a pearl in prog metal!I adore this album and each time when I made an audition and WHEN I'M OLD is caressing my ears I am in a melancholic and nostalgic mood!This is the goal of music-to touch the listeners's heart and to move a little his feelings!IVANHOE are continuing even today with quelity albums,but this one is the highlight in their career so far!Trully inspired and beautiful! 4,5 STARS for a moment of magic for IVANHOE!

Third album issued in 1997 named Polarized is another worthy prog metal album of this discret band from Germany. While has is moments I thing is little less intresting then predecesor, who I considered their best effort from first era with Andy B. Franck. Typical teutonic prog metal with nice arrangements, all passages are well executed , everything is where it belongs, the only thing is that the melodic lines overall are not fantstic, only ok. Very good are the guitar parts, Achim Welsch really knowing to handle the instrumen, some examples are in Souls Of Fire, Wasted Time or When I'm Old . Also the voice of Andy is excellent for this type of music, sadly this is the last album with him on vocals, he will join another german band named Brainstorm where he done again a great job. All in all decent towards great in places pieces, but not really very inspired from start to finish. 3 stars, rounded to 3.5 here and there.