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The debut album from Sweden's neo-classical metallers Meduza featured Kristian Andrén (Street Talk, Memento Mori) on vocals. He has now been replaced with a permanent vocalist in Apollo Papathanasia. Apollo's voice did seem like a bad choice for Gardenian in my opinion but here he fits in much better with his powerful appearance. This band features guitarist Stefan Berg who, according to the promo sheet from their label, is "one of the best guitarists in the World right now". They could be right about that because he is displaying some fine tuned skills on this album. The only thing missing in the band is apparently a song writer because that is where Meduza unfortunately fail. It is not impossible to sit down and listen to this album and enjoy it all the way through but there is a big chance you will start skipping tracks after a short while. The band shows promise on more than one occasion but it never takes off for real. I don't know exactly why but it's a shame because there is so much potential within these musicians. The production by metal veteran Mike Wead is flawless but the cover art by Travis Smith is unnecessarily messy in my opinion. He is usually a great artist but this is not the best of his work. In short, this will only be worth buying for hardcore fans of neo-classical metal who wants to get their hands of every decent release in the genre I'm afraid. Excellent musicianship but poor song writing, the thorn in the eye for most bands. There is one nice exception though in the song "Can You Tell", the obvious highlight of the album. Here everything falls into place for the band - the song is filled with energy, there is a clear red line running from beginning to end and the chorus is wonderful. Definitely single material. Apart from that song I will not remember much from this album. I know that may seem harsh but it's not a bad album, just not one that stands up very well in the hard competition today.
| Tracklist |
| 1. Design For Life |
| 2. The Vision |
| 3. Dream On |
| 4. Divina Comedia |
| 5. Face Of A Demon |
| 6. Upon The World |
| 7. Can You Tell |
| 8. Voices |
| 9. In Death |
: 46.24
| Buy other Meduza albums |
