(Dockyard 1) Total Time: 79:30
I'm probably not the best person to review this release, as power / progressive metal are not really my strengths. Though I used to be a GAMMA RAY fan ("Rebellion in dreamland" was such a great song - up until the point you saw the video clip) and I do think that BLIND GUARDIAN have released some absolutely incredible albums ("Nightfall", "Imaginations." and "Somewhere.|"), nowadays I find the absurdity of power metal and the intensity of constantly changing melodies too much to bear. So please do take this mind as you read my review of VANISHING POINT's third album, which is my first encounter with the band.
VANISHING POINT is a power / progressive metal (as you probably guessed) quintet from down under (that's Australia, mate). In their latest release, which features some pretty cool cover art (which initially had me thinking that this would be a dark release), VANISHING POINT utilise guitars, drums, bass guitars, vocals and a lot of keyboards, to bring us almost 80 minutes of extremely melodic music. The vocals are in the typical clich? of the style - and that's what's the thing that alienates me the most from this release.
The music is an amalgam of DREAM THEATER - type progressive HELLOWEEN / GAMMA RAY - type power. As such, you have the typical power metal song structure, the typical upbeat power metal melodies, but those are rapidly changing and are piled one on top of the other, in the DREAM THEATER style. There's just too much melody here for my tastes. Instead of focusing on imprinting a nice melody on the listener, VANISHING POINT constantly force him/her to refocus on another one. Combined with the perkiness and upbeat nature of those melodies, it becomes quite difficult for someone that's not a fan of this genre to repeatedly listen to this album.
Nevertheless there are some great points in this album. The piano melody in the middle of "Once a Believer", or the lead guitars in "Reason" add beautiful colour to this release. "Embrace the Silence" is also wonderfully produced. There's certainly a lot of effort in putting together this release (which was almost 5 years in the making) and it shows. Fans of this reasonably peculiar metal genre should definitely invest in "Embrace the Silence" - you'll love it. For the others, it's definitely worth a listen, as it's one of the better releases in the genre recently.
