Over the last few days:
Just because...A few words on Elegy's Labyrinth of Dreams. I found myself in the mood to revisit it today. I love, LOVE this album. I remember, back in 1993, so many bands were popping up after the success of Images and Words, and one reviewer in a magazine was pretty enthusiastic about the debut from this Dutch band, praising it as a fantastic prog-metal record. Of course, as was often the case, this sounded
nothing like DT, but it didn't matter. Because fantastic it was
A mix of power, some prog (yes - but more in the vein of late 80s Queensryche...a couple of pretty obvious nods in there), some AOR/class metal (they were not shy about their 80s influence that way) and some serious guitar shredding. Great stuff. Brilliant dual guitar attack and phenomenal drumming (Ed Warby was a guest on drums for this record and he delivered his usual flawless performance). I like the vocals, although the singer was a bit polarizing (sometimes trying to reach the stratosphere, but not quite as much as in later albums). I also always felt that this is the kind of debut that likely collected songs that were written over various stylistic phases - you can tell it's the same band throughout, of course, but there is stuff that sounds more "mature" and stuff that has slightly more unbridled youthful enthusiasm
The closer, The Guiding Light, could be a Helloween song. And there are a couple of short instrumental that are basically guitar showcases (incidentally, what is Henk van de Laars up to, these days? Such an underrated - as in: not very well known - guitar player). But, my goodness, just the opening trio, The Grand Change, I'm No Fool and Take My Love...love it...
Also, a couple of 2023 releases:
Crom is pretty good epic metal...Hellripper is a nice slab of blackened/"deathened" thrash metal
Topic: What album are you listening to v.8 (Read 185652 times)
