Kategorie: CD-Reviews | Genre: Progmetal | Heft: Jahrgang 2014, eclipsed Nr. 158 / 3-2014 | VÖ-Jahr: 2014 | Wertung: 7/10 | Label: Frontiers | Autor: ML
With their seventh studio album, Vanden Plas think even bigger than before. In their predecessor works "Christ O" (2006) and "The Seraphic Clockwork" (2010), they had already staged dramatic-theatrical content in a bombastic and complex musical way. In 2012 and 2013 they successfully performed an art rock opera with singer Andy Kuntz in the leading role - he was on stage and the band in the orchestra pit. "Bloodnight" is based on Wolfgang Hohlbein's successful book series "The Chronicle of the Immortals". The band and the hollow leg take the next step and put this story on the record. The first part, called "Path 1" here, returns ten tracks. The second is scheduled for 2015. Musically, Vanden Plas have never been so symphonic and bombastic as here, which doesn't mean that they completely cut their metallic roots. Hard guitar riffs continue to be the fuel that transports their increasingly complex music and makes it quasi portionable. With them they partly look like Dream Theater again, with whom they were compared at the beginning of their career, also because of the similarities of the voices of James LaBrie and Kuntz.
Top track: Vision 7ven - The King And The Children Of Lost World