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The third album from Nightingale called I is a mixed bag for me. On one hand I really think this is a good album, but there is far between the really excellent songs. Dan Swanö is assisted by his brother Tom Nouga on guitar and keyboards while he plays everything else on the album and sings of course. This is still not a group effort but mostly a solo album from Dan Swanö like the first two Nightingale albums.

The music has developed quite a bit since The Closing Chronicles. The beautiful symphonic progressive rock which was on The Closing Chronicles have changed character. I starts with the two best songs on the album Scarred For Life and Still In The Dark which are fast rocking symphonic rock songs. These two songs are IMO some of the best songs ever made by Nightingale and if every song on the album sounded like those songs this would have been a masterpiece. Unfortunately Nightingale slows thing down for the rest of the album. The rest of the songs are good songs, but they have a tendency to melt together and not really be memorable which is a bit disappointing. There are only hints of metal in Nightingales ´s music, so don´t let the progressive metal label scare you away. The overall style is still symphonic prog rock/ metal with Dan Swanö´s beautiful vocal melodies in the center.

While the compositions have flaws it´s the production that is the biggest sinner. With a better production some of these songs might have worked better. The vocals are especially badly produced. It´s really a pity.

Both Dan Swanö and Tom Nouga are great musicians, so there is nothing wrong with the musicianship except maybe for the drums. Dan will never be a really good drummer and sometimes the drums are so primitive that it´s almost embarresing to call this progressive rock.

Even though I has lots of flaws I will still rate it 3 stars as it still is a very good album. I still prefer the two first Nightingale albums though.

Nightingale have taken quite a journey since their charming goth rock flavoured debut. I can't say the journey went into stellar directions. The songs on I are mostly overcooked hard rock clichés with lots of AOR cheese and neo-prog topping. Not my favourite salad.

The first two songs are exemplary. Formulaic hard rockers with a steady pace and catchy melodies. Not failing at what they try to be but just so old and predictable. The pop modulations in the verses don't help either. No, not my taste at all. The Game is one of the few track that brings back some of the magic of the preceding albums. Basically, it's a simple verse chorus rock ballad but the melodies are compelling enough to make it work.

What follows is a procession of half-pleasant but unremarkable hard rock and AOR songs. Only Alonely manages to convince me, even if it is the most sentimental moment of the entire album. Still, I very much doubt if I would like this if Swanö wasn't handling the vocals. His dark and breathy voice is always a feast really. One other song sticks out, Dead Or Alive has some nicely processed clean chorus guitar effects in the verses and a heavy riff for the chorus. The song ends a bit abruptly though and could have been developed more thoroughly.

After the tribute to Sisters of Mercy on the debut and the dark neo-prog of the second album, Swanö clearly chose to honour his love for Asia and Dio on his third Nightingale album. Luckily it never gets as bad as Asia's debut, the production is less overstated and the songs are not equally commercial, but it's a narrow escape. This is competent but unchallenging glossy rock. 2.5 stars.