Asylum Pyre
Spirited Away

Chaos Heidi and her friends are back, three years later, with a new album they have entitled Spirited Away. An album that doesn’t have the same exciting cover artwork as its predecessor Fifty Years Later, the latter was well received by Hallowed three years ago. And they have teamed up with the same producer now and the themetic is about the human spirit and its twist and turns. I think however there is one thing in the press release that has me a bit confused: “The album aims to delight both fans of today’s metal scene” is the end of the text of the press release, I though the scene had more fans than that. Guess I need to reassess what we write about at Hallowed as it would appear that there are a bit too few fans for us. Joking aside though, what will these guys get if they buy the album?

A very melodic metal album, I think both will agree on that. The variation through the songs is very large, there are both classic and more modern electronic elements throughout the album and the production is excellent. The sound is great and I think they have managed to make a wide variety of styles and song types fit together in a very coherent package. The vocals are mostly female from Heidi but there also male vocals that are both clean and growly, it adds variation and depth to the album. I would think that the natural conclusion is to say that this is a quality production over thirteen tracks and about fifty minutes, something that probably should not be too much for most listeners.

It is a solid and genuine product - that is more or less how I think of this album. The songs are fantastic while you listen to them and the album feels well worked out and very attractive. Problem is though that it is not as exciting or good as the previous album Fifty Years Later that had much higher peaks and a more exciting feel to it – this album feels, despite the quality of the handiwork, quite bland an perhaps a little bit cautious, careful. They don’t really thread anywhere really exciting with the album, it feels more like handiwork that artwork and I have a hard time feeling particularly excited by it. As I stated before, it is fantastic while listening to it, but as fantastically forgotten when not listening to it.

Not as good as last time around and I don’t think any of the tracks stand out in the regard that I remember and keeps humming on it when I don’t listen to the album. Each song is a hit when listening to it but forgotten when the next begins. I think that those who liked the previous album and/or likes melodic and then mainly female fronted metal will find this album very agreeable, it is hard to be disappointed at something sounding this good. Although on balance I would still return to Fifty Years Later.

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