Review Summary: DragonForce incorporates a more progressive edge to their sound, perhaps allowing them to actually "Reach Into Infinity"
DragonForce has always been a band that you can listen to from time to time, and not take too seriously. In fact, the band doesnt take themselves too seriously when composing their music, that is we have the insanity that is "Inhuman Rampage" and "Ultra Beatdown" which are very much video game inspired records, there are also many sections of their songs that are near impossible to play realistically on guitar and this where their gimmick i feel really goes hand-in-hand with DF. Their known as the band that features incredibly impressive musicianship but at the same time falls into the category in which all of their songs sound unfortunately very similar. (Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-breakdown-chorus).
Fortunately however with this new record "Reaching Into Infinity" DragonForce have really stepped out of their box that they are so well known to be shackled into and this time are incorporating a more progressive edge to their sound, something that we have not seen from DragonForce from any of their previous releases. The first single they dropped from the album "Judgement Day" features a keyboard section that sounds like something Dream Theater would incorporate into one of their progressive suites, followed by of course a face melting solo from mr. Herman Lee and Sam Totman (This is a reoccurring theme in the album, but you already knew that cause its DragonForce). The next song they released "Curse of Darkness" features an intro that is quite epic and something we havent heard from the band until this album.
A ballad is even featured in this record called "Silence" which is really quite beautiful followed by a solo that really fits with the whole mood of the song. Brand new elements that DragonForce have never touched are littered all over this record with each song feeling unique and making it become its own, which their previous songs did not have as they all sort of blended together. Bridges, breakdowns etc. are unique and very out of the norm for the traditional DF agenda.
And if you thought this progressive onslaught where just subtle nods in all of these songs, here we have their longest song DragonForce has ever written to date "The Edge of the World" with a run time of over 11 minutes long, this behemoth of a track cuts itself into a couple sections with sort of a traditional DragonForce structure in the beginning, but then progressing into almost a Death Metal song with some impressive growls from their bassist Frédéric Leclercq, if you thought DragonForce was a one trick poney, listen to this song and i assure you that you will be very mistaken.
Overall with this blending of the DragonForce sound we all know in with these progressive elements, it has resulted in something that is much more interesting than anything they have released in recent times and guitar solo fanatics will not be dissapointed with this album, although there are some cliches that are always prominent in DragonForce, i do think this release as a whole is some of DragonForces best work to date,
