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On disc: Moonlight Agony



- Silent Waters - Claudia Ehrhardt - 9 stars


www.moonlightagony.com







Silent Waters

Silent Waters
(Dockyard 1 - 2007)


With Silent Waters the Swedish Moonlight Agony present their sophomore album. The band started in 1999 and released several demos. Their debut album Echoes Of A Nightmare was released in 2004. At that time Chitral Somapala was singing, but they parted ways in late 2005. The band wanted to have someone living in the area, so that they can play live a bit more. Meanwhile David A˚kesson took over the microphone.
They are opening up with Leaving Solitude - a heavy, dark rocker with up-tempo parts and a catchy melody line. New vocalist David A˚kesson has a powerful voice and so can keep up with the wall of guitars. The first track shows that the sextet don't want to limit themselves and combines different elements of power metal, symphonic metal (keyboards), melodic speed metal and even a bit progressiveness. On You Betray Me you even get some mighty choirs followed by some heavy riffing.... Then the keyboard adds some neo-classical parts and the vocals almost touch the melodic death metal style... Not real growls, but.... It sounds modern and has some groove... On Soulless they use different effects on the vocals... And here the vocals partly remind me of Charles Rytkönen of Morgana Lefay... But Mr. A˚kesson can also hit high notes. Next to fast double bass drum attacks they put catchy refrains... And after some heavy riffs an almost ELP-ish keyboard line - e.g. The Dark Era. In Different Stories you find a reminiscence to a classical theme, but my knowledge isn't vast enough to tell you what it's taken off...
The production was done by Arnold Lindberg who worked with Evergrey in the past - live and in the studio - and who did a great job here. The album sounds fresh and is interesting through its mixture for fans of power metal, neo-classical metal and melodic speed metal, but metal fans in general should check them out. Listen to: Leaving Solitude, The Dark Era and I'm Alive.


9 stars

Claudia Ehrhardt
 

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