Almah
Unfold

So, Almah unfolds their fourth album which is an album with a cover artwork that doesn’t look particularly appealing to me despite it being referred to as stunning in the press info. The album in itself is more stunning which is what really matters anyway. Almah is a Brasilian band which revolves around Edu Falaschi who once appeared on the stage with more well known countrymen of Angra, a band he then left to pursue his work with Almah which no longer is a side project. I have heard the band before some years back, in the earlier days of Hallowed and I was not too amazed by the album Fragile Equality which I said was lacking something. What about this then, over an hour of music is not the most promising, is it? But it might be good still.

The music is melodic power metal very much focused on strong melodies and maybe not so much focused on the choruses even though there are several songs that are. Well produced album, the sound is quite strong and Edu’s fairly typical power metal voice suits this album perfectly. The mix of songs is rather widespread but not enough to really challenge a listener for more than an hour and it can tend to become a tad tedious in parts. I think it sounds like a quality production, but maybe you get a bit much of it which can hamper the impression slightly.

Anyway, I think that this album is very good. It is a strong album despite it being an eternity long and could have been shortened down to work even better. The songs are all quite strong and I have no real remarks to make there, only that there should have been one or more additional strong hit songs to really make the album last a bit longer and make it easier and more interesting to play in its entirety. Overall good performances and a decently original album even though it fits firmly into the many guidelines that seems to be around for the genre, I only wish that it wasn’t as long as it is as I loose interest at times.

Despite the album being a marathon one I think that we hear a much improved Almah this time and I cannot help but enjoying the album quite a bit. There are three songs that really stand out to me and none of them is the single track. The first one is the second one which is called Beware the Stroke, it is a great rocking song with nice atmosphere and feel to it. The fourth one called Warm Wind is another great pice of music, a real hymn and a song about something I would rate very highly right now: a warm wind. Then I think that the penultimate song called Treasure of the God which is a wonderful song that might just as well have been a Stratovarius cover as it is very, very similar to that band’s style. Maybe it is a bit of a ripoff.

I think that I can recommend this album, it has what it takes but maybe a bit much of it. It also shows for a high quality production that is very enjoyable. So, if you like Almah since before or if you just adore the melodic power metal genre, then you should really find this little (or should I say huge?) album very appealing.

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