Review Summary: Dragonland produce an epic, heavy, and beautiful power metal album that needs to be heard.
Dragonland are a Swedish power/symphonic metal band, and in my opinion are one of the best in the world. Their newest release, Astronomy, should be put into the ranks of the best power metal albums, ever. While at first listen it may not seem like anything special, after repeated listenings it becomes clear that there is a lot of talent and creativity in this band. Every song brings a new surprise; and they just keep getting better and better until the final epic, The Old House on Haunted Hill.
The album begins with Supernova, which starts out with space ambience and an astronaut talking in the background. The song then explodes with a clash of synthesized orchestra and guitars. Jonas Heidgert then commences with his ever catchy vocal melodies. This song is a great way to start off the album as it incorporates all of this CD’s elements: heavy, crunched guitars, a strong keyboard/orchestra presence, and huge, very accessible choruses. The song ends as it begins, with the aggressive
opening riff ending the first part of this journey.
The second track, Cassiopeia, begins with guest female vocalist Elise Ryd oooing and ahhhing over a classical acoustic guitar line. The guitars then come in with another heavy riff. This song is more or less a duet between Jonas and Elise, who has a very beautiful voice and it seems to meld with Jonas’ almost perfectly. Another very strong track.
The next song is Contact. This song is much faster and more “power metally” than the first two and pretty much the rest of the songs on the CD. The guitar playing by both Olof Morck and Niklas Magnusson on this song is phenomenal. There is a lot of shredding going on in the background that is technical and entertaining enough to be full blown solos. Keyboardist Elias Holmlid also has a nice synth solo in this song to show off his skills. This song, while not as good as the first two, is still a great power metal tune
The title track, Astronomy is next. It again begins with a style of riffing that is becoming familiar to the listener. Jake E from Dreamland makes his first of two appearances on this song, and the dueling vocals is as good as any other I have heard. Another great song on about the goodness level of Contact .
Antimatter is next. This is probably the heaviest track on the album. Jimmie Strimmel of Nightrage lends his harsh vocals, and although I couldn’t take a whole a CD of his screaming, the short parts he has in this song work well. Blast beats are also commonplace on this track to help bring the pain.
The instrumental The Scrolls of Geometia Divina is next. This song is entirley composed of synthesized orchestrations by Mr. Holmlid. The instruments sound so real that I had to do some research to confirm that there was indeed no orchestra playing these parts. This song works well as a divider between the first- and second-halves of the album. While the first 5 songs are great, the best is only yet to come.
The next song, Beethoven’s Nightmare, is one of the highlights of the album. This song borrows from a few of Beethoven’s works; it reminds me of something Trans-Siberian Orchestra would do. The song is apparently an autobiography of Beethoven and, while it is extremely cheesy, it is very, very good. Jonas sings, “ See my hands conducting a nightmare, the symphony of a tragedy, so great it devours me, these notes are just fantasy…” Like I said: cheesy. But, this song is extremely emotional and shows the near-virtuoso piano playing of Elias. One of my favorites, I cannot describe in words how great this song is: a very strong 5/5.
Too Late for Sorrow comes next. This is the ballad of the album, but don’t let that scare you away, it is still one of the strongest songs on here. Ms. Ryd makes another appearance for a beautiful duet with Jonas. You can’t help but to sing along to the extremely catchy chorus. Elias and Olof share another great solo to help make this another one of my favorite songs.
The last “real” song is Direction:Perfection. This is another pounding, heavy track, and Nightrage's Jimmie is again on this track, only this time he “harmonizes” with an extremely high falsetto-style singing by Jonas which sounds in one word: awesome. Elias’ orchestrations play over an intense bridge and the song eventually slows down and fades out into the finale.
The epic finale, The Old House on the Hill Chapters 1-3 closes out the album, but not without completly blowing your mind first. The three tracks together add up to be about 15 minutes of excellence. They are completely instrumental, but tell the story of a man who inherets his uncle’s house, but there is a monster in the basement. There is a lot more to the story, but this review’s getting long enough without adding that in here. One could compare this to one of Symphony X’s long songs because of the seemless transactions between symphonic and guitar parts, but in my opinion this is better than anything Michael Romeo & company could ever put together, or at least has put together yet. Everything that you could ask for from a power metal epic is here: dynamics, beauty, emotion, and technicality. It is a great way to close a great album
I cannot rave enough about this CD. When I got it last winter, I couldn’t stop listening to it. I highly recommend it to everyone. This is power metal, hell, music in general, at its best.
don't have time to read the whole review atm but wil do so later.
