Review Summary: Theocracy is a fantastic band, combining the best from power metal and the most interesting from the progressive genre to create an epic album that sounds like Dream Theater mixed with Sonata Arctica.
Sounds somewhat godly, right? Well, of course it does. In Mirror of Souls, Theocracy ditches the drum machine and also takes a huge step forward in production and song-writing. Mirror of Souls is undoubtedly a stronger album than their self-titled debut.
All the members are very efficient in their trade and technical riffs, hasty drumming and smooth atmosphere filled keyboard segments are sure to leave the listener stunned. The drummer does his standard thing, but sometimes surprises you with unexpected blast beats and rapid bass drums. The guitar riffs are really catchy and professional. Power riffs and tremolo picking are most commonly heard on Mirror of Souls. The guitarist often goes outside the border though, and that is also a factor to why they are often mentioned as a part of the progressive genre of music.
The vocals are as you might have guessed your usual clean powerful vocals. They are, however, on the top tier when it comes to power metal bands. They are not silly or cliché, but instead they sound more like vocals that you might hear from a more progressive metal band rather than a full scale power metal band. The vocalist has on the other hand tendencies to go overboard on some of the songs, shrieking for all his heart desires. Besides whatever someone might think, the vocals are amazing and really do the right thing to gild Mirror of Souls.
Is there anything that is weak on Mirror of Souls then? Well, the bass is for the most part not too audible. It gets drenched by the guitar and keyboards and only gets a few moments of real brilliance. It’s as in most music within this genre: The bas is only there for the overall body of the album.
Some of the songs on Mirror of Souls deviate more into the pure power genre while others takes a turn into the progressive path. The third songs Laying The Demon To Rest and the last song Mirror of Souls are the most obviously “prog” inspired tracks. Laying the Demon to Rest has the good length of almost ten minutes while Mirror of Souls is over twenty minutes long. The entire album has an overall time of 1 hour and 8 minutes which is perfect since it never gets dull. The title-track is also probably one of the best power metal songs written. Absolution day is a very “poppy” track so if you’re not a fan of that I give you a warning, but it shouldn’t be the biggest problem since whatever you may thing of more poppy power metal tracks, Mirror of Souls doesn’t fail to deliver. The fourth track called Bethlehem is a Blind Guardian style ballad. It has an acoustic intro and when about half the song has passed it deviates into a great, but a somewhat cheesy and slower yet powerful song.
Do you like metal? Check this out then.
