Oh, and sorry if I carried on about it so much, every second post of mine back then must have been about this album. I know j loves this one as much as I do too.
There's no need to apologize for carriying on about it so much when the album in question is that awesome. Everyone, especially you guys who are already into PF, seriously, give it a try.
Now, onward with a somewhat obscure one which I diligently tried to send in as many roulettes as I dared.
#6
Empires Never Last
Galahad
Genre: progressive rock / progressive metal
2007
Recommended to me by: ErHaO
As we’re approaching the final entries in this list, I begin reflecting on all the choices for this one. When I sat to determine the order of the records’ appearance on this list, I sort of knew the Top 10 will feature a lot of highly regarded albums on DTF. And at the same time I knew that there will be
Number Seven by Phideaux and this very gem.
This—and, well, four albums out of the remaining five after that one—is a perfect example of what kind of things I’m looking for while running a roulette. I’m too lazy to do a full-blown album roulette, and I don’t think the concept was introduced when I hosted my first two, anyway, but the ideal submission should be good enough for me to check out the album or the band
and not be disappointed with the rest of the material on it. I know, I know, your best strategy is to send the best songs and to hell with it, and I do that myself too, but I’m just saying that it’s always a huge pleasure to discover that not only the song you gave me was excellent, but the whole album lives up to the hype and the expectations. With
Empires Never Last it’s exactly like that; the title track had me hooked, and the album, from the starting chant of
De-Fi-Ance to the last notes of fantastic
This Life Could Be My Last, delivers the goods just as much as the title track does. While 9+ minutes long tracks can be tedious to listen to in roulettes, the song
Empires Never Last seems to be a good introduction to Galahad for people, staying simple yet interesting enough to hold even the fogeys attention—I remember Chad and Kade liking it.
The album has two huge potential drawbacks I could see, not counting its general neo-progressive rock style with a singer which may not be up everyone’s alley. One of them is the fact that this album is pretty political, as far as I was able to discern—not sure if there’s anything directed at something in particular, but the lyrics for
Sidewinder and
Empires Never Last are, as expected, touching the political matters like discussing the forms of government and other aspects, I suppose. I don’t have an issue with that. In fact, I found the general vibe of lyrics on the album to be refreshing. Second, the album is a bit on a quirky side, especially with the singer’s unusual delivery of some lines, which becomes overly apparent on
I Could Be God. However, every chorus here is infectious, the song structures are varied and inspired, and you can also hear the bass at all times.
Nothing else I’ve checked from these guys grabbed me, although their latest, called
Seas of Change, was decent enough, but honestly, while, of course, it’s fantastic to discover the whole new excellent discography of a band, if I find at least one an album this fabulous, I consider my foray into the band’s work a staggering success. For someone who sent me a lot of mediocre stuff, ErHaO, you certainly introduced me to a lot of fantastic records, including
When Time Fades by Suspyre, which narrowly missed the honourable mentions, Circus Maximus and this one, which is, as far as I’m concerned, your crowning achievement in my roulettes.
I’m going to spin this album again, I think.
Favourite songs:
Termination (
YouTube,
Spotify),
Empires Never Last (
YouTube,
Spotify),
This Life Could Be My Last (
YouTube,
Spotify)