Elysion
Someplace Better

Who wouldn’t want to be someplace better? Well I would, definitively and in lack of that possibility right now maybe this album can be the next best thing. I heard this band when they released their debut album, Silent Scream, some five years ago. Now it is time for their second album, it does not look quite as interesting from a cover art point of view. I enjoyed the first album, it was a great debut and a fairly exciting album so I cannot help looking forward to this new album. But of course taking a long time, it can be a risk but it might just be because they were working to create the best possible album at it took them almost five years.

Production is very good, the sound is fine and the performances are high quality through and through. The music is female fronted gothic styled metal with pretty high stylistic variation through the songs, they do use some pop stuff, many synths and stuff. Christianna has a fairly decent voice, slightly reminiscent of many of the modern female metal singers but maybe she is slightly better. The band themselves are quite modern as well, I think they sound quite fresh and they have matured quite bit from the last time I heard them. But maturity aside, they also present a really good product, very strong in fact.

And the music is strong as well, very strong. I think they have improved quite a bit from the last time I heard them, they are probably better in each and every area and that includes the feel of energy and freshness, maybe the band was reborn with the greek economic crisis. Even if they wasn’t one can clearly say that despite their problems, the greek still has something to offer which is highlighted very much by this brilliant album which I think is the best one released this year and will probably be amongst the best when the year is summarised.

Strangely enough I have a hard time really pinpointing any single element that makes this album so great, the songs and sound isn’t very unique, Christianna is a good but not exceptional singer, the production is not the best I have heard but then it all falls together into a gang of brilliant songs that are very near perfect. I have a hard time finding any real flaw with this album and I really enjoy listening to it, over and over, I would say that the album was well worth the wait.

There are several excellent songs on this album but I think the one I like the best is the seventh track What Lies Beneath even if they have mixed up the order of the words in the performance of the chorus but the song is quite brilliant. Then I think the opening track as well as the title track deserves to be mentioned as almost as strong as the seventh track. So for all of you wishing to be someplace better and cannot be, this is your next best thing. An excellent album that I can warmly recommend that you play over and over again.

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