Tracklist:
- A Prophesy of Worlds to Fall
- Valentine
- Forevermore
- Euphoria
- Blood on my Hands
- Soulcrusher
- The Dream is Still Alive
- The Lost Elysion
- Call of the Wind
- A Thousand Letters
- Cursed
- The Nomad’s Crown
- When the Mirror Cracks (bonus track)
“Once there was a time of a never-ending dream”. Sound familiar?* This is Xandria’s first full-length release since 2007, and,
sporting luxurious strings, moaning guitars, and a new frontwoman, Neverworld’s
End sees the band reaching towards the pinnacle of the symphonic metal
genre. It shows, for better and for
worse.
There are some really good things
about this album, and it will undoubtedly be a hit with established fans of
symphonic metal. As is expected of the
genre, rich, layered textures are in force throughout, with the usual strings,
brass, and choral accompaniment featuring prominently from the start, as A
Prophesy of Worlds to Fall opens Neverworld’s End in bombastic fashion. Lighter tones prevail in slower ballads, The
Dream is Still Alive, and A Thousand Letters, both offering a cocktail of
pianos and orchestral accompaniment, along with some highly-charged emotional
content – when the solo enters The Dream is Still Alive, the guitar literally
weeps.
What Xandria do well, they do
very well indeed, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of
their female vocalist, Manuela Kraller.
While bands like Nightwish and Within Temptation have quietly slipped
away from classical vocals in recent years, Xandria have embraced them. Kraller’s style is the operatic full monty:
soaring melodies; dramatic staccato hits; hushed, mystical tones. Having been inducted into metal via a
Tarja-fronted Nightwish, I might not have been surprised to hear all this, but
the quality of vocals was nonetheless pleasing. And there are some genuine surprises, also. The band were clearly not scared to
experiment with their instruments, leading to an impressive range of sounds and
effects. From the jagged orchestral
spikes and soaring harmonies which dominate the opening five tracks, the
sinister Soulcrusher introduces alarming chromatic strings to paint a dark and
turbulent atmosphere. The album bows
out in a nine-minute oriental blaze of glory, with the deeply impressive The
Nomad’s Crown, featuring what sounds like the national orchestra of Pharaoh’s
Egypt. Certainly, Xandria are at their
strongest when dabbling in different styles, and the most enjoyable bits of the
album are their Celtic-inspired duo of tracks towards the end, Call of the
Wind, and Cursed, resplendent with rhythms and fiddles straight from the shire.
Although I’m not sure, my guess
is that Xandria didn’t employ a full orchestra for the album – please enlighten
me if you know! – and if not, it’s clear synth has come on leaps and bounds
since symphonic metal began. With the
exception of some sickly fake strings in the choruses of A Prophesy of Worlds to
Fall, and Blood on my Hands, a comfy chair and good sound system would have you
believe you’re in a classical concert hall.
This is all evidence of some quite careful production, from the
intricate layering of strings and woodwind over the top of lyrical melodies to
harmonies and counterpoint built on vocal melodies (on this second feature, see
especially track 3, Forevermore).
Alongside the indulgent
slobbering of a true symphonic sycophant, however, must come a frank
acknowledgement of the album’s numerous drawbacks. In a musical sense, it’s disappointing to find such clearly
talented instrumentalists so unwilling to venture beyond generic comforts. With the exception of instrumental
flourishes and the occasional instances of folk-themes, rhythms are rarely
anything other a straight 4:4. Chord
sequences are no more adventurous: the decision to go with the same sequence –
for instrumentalists out there, it’s I, VI, III, VII – for the verses of three
consecutive songs (tracks 2, 3, and 4) is telling.
In a sense, it seems unfair to
criticise too harshly. Harmonies – and
even, to a certain extent, rhythms – are largely determined by the melodies
they accompany; and there’s nothing wrong with these. But this is symptomatic of a deeper problem, typical of vast
swathes of the gothic metal circuit. On
a very basic level, there is something immature – even juvenile – about Xandria’s
style (for a visual illustration, see their official video to the song,
Valentine, below). All too often,
subtlety absconds, as suffocating grandeur replaces genuine musical invention. From the start, the need for epic dimensions
calls the band’s formidable ensemble into waves of gratuitous unison. And even where such temptations are
resisted, it is a rare song which doesn’t feature the omnipotent drone of
strings in sustained, rhythmless block chords.
More often than not, it feel’s like I’m listening to an anthology of
rousing musical finales. The result is
a collection of songs, rather than anything that could be seriously considered
an album in its own right.
But it is in its lyrics that
Neverworld’s End truly distinguishes itself.
Lines are mystical: “Silver stars in my black night/Cold as ice but
beautiful” (Blood on my Hands). They
are self-indulgent: “There’s no escape, every day is a treadmill of pain" (Soulcrusher). But, more often than
not, they’re just rubbish. A major
contributing factor seems to have been a slavish reliance on the rhyming
dictionary, which leads to a brand of English typically unseen from writers
over the age of fifteen. For example:
“Now I listen to my name/Sounding like a blame” (Valentine); or, “…a never-ending
dream/Of being free, of immortality” (Forevermore); or, “The world full of
fear, of lies in my ears” (The Lost Elysion); and, my personal favourite, “Took
sense and madness as they come/This circus life has left me on my own/My
expectations were my home/But when the mirror cracks there’s so much left
undone” (When the Mirror Cracks).
In individual songs, words may
serve little purpose beyond fitting vocals to the rhythms of instrumental
arrangements. But in a collection
lacking serious thematic progression, it creates utter confusion. The album’s title, Neverworld’s End, along
with some particularly attractive cover art, conjures thoughts of lost
paradise, a dark fairytale, perhaps, in the mould of an adult Peter Pan. In practice, it serves less as a guiding
theme to a musically unfolding story than an indistinct, common principle upon
which songs may – or may not – be based.
And the coherence of the album is
not helped by the conspicuous presence of “bonus track”, When the Mirror
Cracks. This might seem like a needless
point to emphasise, but such gruelling feats of musical padding really are
beyond a joke. Absurd, melodramatic
blasts of noise introduce this final track, followed by dysfunctional harmonies
above melodic lines which could have been taken straight out of the Sunday
charts. The lyrics – many of which have
to be seen to be believed – make those of earlier songs seem like strokes of
absolute genius. The most frustrating
thing here is the obvious gulf between the name and substance of the product in
question: there is no sense whatsoever of the unexpected pleasure which the
word “bonus” implies. If nothing else,
an honest statement on the nature of such hidden gems is needed. Perhaps, next time, we might see the
accompanying words, “unfinished track”, “disappointment track”, or, simply,
“the piece we weren’t prepared to contaminate the earlier songs in the album
with”? But probably not.
All said, it’s easy to criticise,
and there’s a real part of me that doesn’t want to do so. As an initiate of the symphonic genre, I
found a lot to enjoy: the vocals are fantastic, music themes often emotive and
powerful, and, for all the album’s lack of coherence, there are some pretty
good individual songs. But there are
enough drawbacks to put many listeners off, not least frequent lapses in
musical discipline which cost Xandria dear.
The gothic, the sentimental, and the Tarja fan will all have much to
savour, but the success of this album will ultimately be measured in its
ability to draw listeners from other genres.
My guess is, it’ll struggle to do so.
Production: 4/5
Lyrics: 2/5
Album Coherence: 2/5
Music: 7/10
Percentage Score: 60/100
http://xandria.de/
No comments:
Post a Comment