ASTRONOMICA

A welcome return to what they were once, among the top bands in the '80's metal. With ex Savatage drumer Steve Wacholz, Crimson Glory come with a new sound more elaborate then the '80 albums, but less enjoyble then Transcendence for ex. The album has very great llyrics just listen to Touch of the sun and The other side of midnight, but also musicaly speaking is good but non essential. The voice is something between Rob Halford and and the vocal from Sanctuary, is Ok, but sometime his screaming to much , i mean is to in front, to high without reason. Anyway on slower pieces Wade Black is just stunning on Touch of the sun is superb, and the bass player Jeff Lords is realy awesome, or maybe the sound of the album made him to sound so good and heavy.3 stars, for this one.

"Astronomica" is the 4th full-length studio album by US power metal act Crimson Glory. The album was released through Spitfire Records (US release)/Rising Sun (Europe release) in September 1999. Crimson Glory achieved quite a bit of success with their first two albums, which both featured a melodic but still at times pretty hard edged US power metal style. Their third full-length studio album "Strange And Beautiful (1991)" was generally not received that well though, and the band folded soon after its release. With a few lineup changes (including the replacement of original vocalist Midnight with Wade Black) the band reunited shortly in 1999 and recorded "Astronomica". Crimson Glory disbanded for a second time shortly after the release of the album.

After the stylistic mish mash of "Strange And Beautiful (1991)", fans of Crimson Glory probably didn´t have high expectations to "Astronomica". Stylistically it´s more or less a return to the US power/heavy metal style of the band´s first two albums though, and fans of those two albums should find a lot to like here. Midnight was of course an iconic frontman and his helium screams are legendary, but Wade Black does a great job here. He has a strong and commanding delivery, and can sing both raw and higher pitched screaming type vocals and his voice fits well with the instrumental part of the music.

The material on the 10 track, 69:44 minutes long album (about 20 minutes of which are silence following the closing track "Cydonia") are well written and relatively varied. There are hard edged US power metal tracks like "War Of The Worlds", "Lucifer's Hammer", and "Cyber-Christ" featured on the album, but there are also more epic and sometimes bordering power ballad type tracks like "Astronomica", "Edge of Forever", and "Cydonia". Some tracks are very well written, powerful, and memorable, while others are less remarkable. Everything features a professional touch though, and paired with a powerful and detailed sound production, and high level musicianship, "Astronomica" is a relatively successful return to form after the generally ill-received "Strange And Beautiful (1991)". It´s not a perfect album by any means, but there are enough quality here to warrant a 3.5 star (70%) rating.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives)

Crimson Glory - Astronomica 3 stars

The redeeming album.

After the last disaster, there is a replacement drummer and finally another guitar is brought back on board to fix the leak in the faucet. One of the defining factors of the band was the vocals, and sadly Midnight had left. The new vocalist, Wade Black, was not terrible by any means, but different from what Crimson Glory had going for it.

Aside from the much needed guitarist, the music was also a little more powerful than the previous effort. The twin guitar attack wasn't as powerful as before, but it was a step up from the single guitarist idea beforehand. This effort seemed to produce a decent record. Plenty of twists of hooks to keep the listener somewhat entertained, but the emergence of the 90's progressive metal bands just makes this one bite the dust. Still a pretty good album though.

Astronomica (1999) is the fourth studio album by Crimson Glory, a North American band. In fact is their first album in 8 years since Strange And Beautiful (1991). Nothing strange that this was their comeback and also last release.

Crimson Glory plays pretty much Heavy Metal with hints of Progressive Metal. It is in fact a 4 man band, but it looks like a solo project, really.

Nothing, nothing remarkable. Nothing really stands out but one phrase in my mind: "Endless screaming and a horrible drum sound."

Oh yeah, and don't forget that after 5 minutes of the last song you still have more.... perfect!