Review Summary: Daniel Heiman isn’t as good as I feel that he is on A Flame Through the Ground Beneath, but he still shows off superb vocal ability
Ah, the wonders of Power Metal. From slaying dragons as a mighty warrior to battling orcs, whatever your preference to fantasy lyrics are, they are present in the genre of Power metal. One band though throws those types of lyrics out the window; Lost Horizon. They deal with astronomical kind of things, and they plain kick your a$$ while doing it. Their first album Awakening the World is as perfect of a debut that I have probably ever seen.
The albums opener starts off with
The Quickening, a nice little minute or so track that makes you feel like you are in a storm, only this particular storm is one from outer space.
Next we got
Heart of a Storm, a nice track that shows of Daniel’s range and consists of catchy chorus, but I do not find it as compelling as the later tracks on the album.
Sworn in the Metal Wind though is a whole lot better. It starts off very fast with Daniel doing a signature “WOAHHHHHHHH”. It leads into a very upbeat and fast verse that never gives up. The guitars in the song is phenomenal and are extremely fast to go with the fast pace of the song. Overall a very nice track.
After these two songs, we have The Song of Air, it isn’t much, but it leads into my favorite song by this band,
World Through My Fateless Eyes. This starts off with an awesome bass line that leads into the guitars. This leads to the exceptional verses by Daniel who sings with so much passion. The chorus, while only occurring twice, is my favorite part of this song, especially the guitar part right after it. Thankfully it occurs many a time during the song because it is just exceptional. We get a good solo following another string of verses. This leads to the final chorus which, when I heard it the first time, hell I still do this, it made my jaw drop to a level it had never been before. The song ends with the killer guitar part I mentioned before. This song is easily my favorite on this album (and possibly that they’ve ever done with maybe the exception of Highlander (The One) and is a perfect power metal track.
After the beauty of World Through My Fateless Eyes,
Perfect Warrior is next. It isn’t that it is a bad song, it’s just that I heard such a phenomenal song before it. The guitars are excellent again, and Daniel shows off some more (which is a very good thing). Next we have
Denial of Fate, which is a very good song, probably my second favorite on here. Like basically every song before it, this is a fast paced affair throughout. What got me going is when Daniel sings the verses extremely fast again, just like Sworn in a Metal Wind, and then sings the verse of “Flames of rage arise in power” in a matter which I can only describe as god like.
Welcome Back starts off slow but then erupts into the speed that has been present throughout. Daniel and the guitarist Lisicki do a great job again, this song consists of my favorite solo on the whole album (think video game music, but not Dragonforce wankery)
The album ends with
Kingdom of My Will and The Redintegration, which the latter being an instrumental to close. Kingdom of My Will is the longest song on here, but I feel that it tries to be too epic at times, but the guitar solo in the middle just owns, and Lisicki is the standout for the track this time because I feel Daniel should’ve done more wails then he actually did.
Overall, this is a fantastic album. Daniel Heiman isn’t as good as I feel that he is on A Flame Through the Ground Beneath, but he still shows off superb vocal ability. I recommend this to anyone that is a fan of the power metal genre and likes metal in general.
Recommended Songs
World Through My Fateless Eyes
Denial of Fate.
Oh hell, just pick the damn thing up, it’s all good.
