THE SERAPHIC CLOCKWORK

The Seraphic Clockwork is an excellent follow-up to the exceptional Christ 0. Considering that it has been 4 years in the making (longer than any of the previous albums), I had very high expectations and I'm happy to say TSC lives up to them admirably.

Starting off with the powerful riffs "Frequency", we morph smoothly into "Holes in the Sky" with its catchy chorus. "Scar of an Angel" has a mesmerizing punch-line with the backing female vocals adding an exotic touch. Then we have a sequence of 3 songs, getting progressively better with more strong riffing in "Sound of Blood", the haunting "The Final Murder" and the beautiful ballad-y "Quicksilver" with the one of the most lingering riffs from Stephan Lill from about 4:00...

"Rush of Silence" is typical (but somehow not at all repetitive) Vanden Plas - long winding instrumentation that you can lose yourself in.

The 12-min + closer "On My Way To Jerusalem" is one the the highlights of the album, along with "Quicksilver" and "The Final Murder". It has an amazing vocal melody, espcially when Andy Kuntz goes into the chorus with "Hey You..."...haunting!

A lot of folks compare them to Dream Theater or Shadow Gallery. While I'm also a big fan of these 2 bands and love their music, I think they always struggle to make an album without a really bad song or two. In my opinion, Dream Theater and Shadow Gallery at their best are better than Vanden Plas but Vanden Plas scores one over them for being very consistent and are almost equally brilliant (maybe having the same 5 guys who formed the band still together after 16+ years and so many albums helps!)

Can't wait for the next one from the guys from Kaiserslautern...just hope they dont take another 4 years!