Thank you for your concern, folks, it means a great deal, seriously. The issue is nothing too serious, although I was so tired yesterday that I just posted that and went to sleep, and it ended up sounding pretty grave.
Should've probably explained that right away. I've been sick with hell of a tonsillitis for the previous two weeks, and it still hasn't passed. Yesterday I felt like shit so they drove me to a hospital and ran a couple of tests to see if there are any complications because of the sickness, and to determine if they should let me go home or admit me in. It took quite a long time, and apparently they didn't find anything too concerning—yet—so I'm told to stay home this week and see if my condition gets any better or worse.
Which means I have some time to answer the rest of this and post a new album!
Fire/Water is a tough one, because I really like Water, yet I'm not into the heavier aspect of Fire. I sent Firebreather to Indiscipline only because the requirement was to send different songs, although I admit, that riff in the beginning is badass.
I was intending to go and explore Thrice more, but whenever I was tempted to check out their latest album, I think I've always found a post or two about how their new material wasn't very good, so I never got to that. So as far as this band goes, I only know Alchemy Index and Beggars. One day I'll listen to some other albums. This is also one of the patterns with this list, the deeper we go, the more I'm familiar with the bands' output.
With this next update, it's important to remember that I love Roy Khan's era of Kamelot, and bands like Delain and Serious Black made it as far in the honourable mentions. On a somewhat related note, I just found out today that Delain is playing here next February. I'll need to grab the tickets as soon as I get well. Anyway...
#48
Fragments of Creation
Sunburst
Genre: progressive power metal
2016
Recommended to me by: Big Hath
As I gradually discovered more and more bands in progressive metal genre, it became more and more obvious to me that while the band’s songwriting might be of the highest quality, if their singer’s voice doesn’t appeal to me, there’s almost no chance I will dig deeper into the band’s discography. Coheed and Cambria is a prime example of that: I have one album, which I mentioned earlier here, and I have no intention to get any more records from them—well, maybe now that I've got some recommendations here in this thread, I'll reconsider that. Of course, the band could have a Ronnie James Dio reborn and yet fail to deliver in the songwriting department, and then my interest wouldn’t be piqued, either. Solo works by Jorn Lande are the prime example of that scenario. However, if your band excels in either of these departments, then some flaws in the opposite department could be forgiven, like on
Fragments of Creation.
Is the songwriting here exceptional? No, not at all, but it’s just good enough to make it work. It’s the singer’s voice that makes the album for me, and between all the projects he’s on—Sunburst, Black Fate, The Chronicles Project—this one is the one that appeals to me the most. It’s not even that unique of a voice, but it strongly reminds me of Roy Khan on his peak, singing his heart out on three Kamelot albums that appeared on my first Top 50 list. And man, apparently I’m a sucker for a voice like that.
That isn’t to say that the Vasilis’ voice is the only positive thing on
Fragments of Creation, it’s just the thing that stands out the most for me. But no, there are enough of fantastic ideas to fill the album, and while some songs might seem formulaic, and some ideas perhaps not fully developed, and while the album closer,
Remedy of My Heart, may heavily remind you of Kamelot’s
Memento Mori, it’s still a fabulous listen, as far as I’m concerned.
Favourite songs:
Lullaby (
YouTube,
Spotify),
Remedy of My Heart (
YouTube,
Spotify)