SOLITUDE - DOMINANCE - TRAGEDY

This album is the second from the Swedish band EVERGREY. Their music is melodic and progressive power metal with orchestrated pieces with harp, violin and choirs. It's all tied together by narration and spoken lyrics. Intelligent, inspiring and interesting music that takes you through many different moods and emotions. Their music is a mixture of DREAM THEATER, KING DIAMOND, PARADISE LOST, QUEENSRYCHE and RHAPSODY, with elements from Classical, Folk, Gothic and Opera music. The compositions have a high standard throughout the entire album with strong melodies. - The highlights are the opening "Solitude Within" with magnificent keyboard playing and violin, "Nosferatu" with it's choirs and orchestrated parts, "The Shocking Truth", "She Speaks To The Dead", "When Darkness Falls" and the ballad "Words Mean Nothing" with great harp playing. The only thing I can't really get used to are the raw vocals. They aren't bad, sometimes really good, but I can't really decide whether I like them or not. - The album has a beautiful artwork of artist Kristian Wahlin. It's produced by KING DIAMOND guitarist Andy LaRocque. I think that this is one of the better albums of 1999 in this genre. A beautiful, dark, heavy and excellent album all in all and it's growing with each listening.