IN SEARCH OF TRUTH

Shame on me and my preconceptions. I've thought Evergrey, being from Gothernburg, to be a Swedish doomy-depressive band a la Catatonia. While this is certainly not happy music and every album deals this way or another with man's inner turmoil, its actually of the gothic-laced power prog variety, all pounding riffs and catchy choruses with keyboard embellishments. While most bands of this type deal in musical cheese or esotericism, Evergrey's leader, Thomas Englund, sounds like a guy ripping his shirt and exposing his innermost to the world. This style calls for soulfulness, and Evergrey wisely use it occasionally to enhance their sound with gospel-like female vocals. If I had a problem with Evergrey is that they tend to front-load their albums and not enough variety, as the same type of pounding riffs and intense vocals get tiresome after a while with just a brief, perfunctionary respite in form of generic ballads and softer vocals.