Empire
Hypnotica

Back in 2004 Sea of Tranquility wrote a rather fitting text about how I feel about this album. A supergroup, kind of like the American dream team in basket was one thing leading up to: “It is 1980s style metal with excellent execution, excellent guitarwork, excellent vocals and excellent… you're getting the idea. If this album had come out in the 1980s we'd still be talking about it. But it came out in 2001, and like the 2004 US Olympic basketball team, it lacks inspiration and creativity.” I wouldn’t write excellent about so many things but you get the idea, it lacks personality and freshness and sounded old when it was released in 2001. This review I write is about a rerelease that is similar to the rerelease in 2004 that was reviewed by Sea of Tranquility. My only guess is that this album was released because the label wanted to rerelease all four of Empires album as they plan to do rather than just releasing the best one, which can’t be this.

Have you heard any of the similar bands? Or just simply hardrock from the eighties, any hardrock? Then you know how it sounds; it doesn’t need more description than that. The production sounds old, not that strange as it is an old album being rereleased and it has been buried under the sands of time for sixteen years so no surprise there. It is just that I would have written the same if I had reviewed when it was originally released. Back then it was a weak nostalgic trip down memory lane and now it feels like an even weaker trip. One hour of songs we have heard before, and that is true even for those who have not heard the album yet. Déjà vu is what we are getting and lots of it.

The album is decent, some of the songs, especially the ones where Mark Boals handles the microphone are really strong. The problem is that I feel like I have heard every song on this album before and as far as I know I haven’t heard it before starting work for this review – it is just a soulless album that sounds like anything else. That is their problem, they didn’t do anything fresh and now the album has been dug up from its grave beneath the sands of time and I just can’t see why. The lingering question when I listen to this album is always why, why did they dig this one up? It is just a small piece without any real significance.

Yawn, is what I come up with when I try to summarise my impressions of this album. Sure it is a decent album but decent albums are being released in too great numbers all the time, so why add to that with stuff from the past?

HHHHHHH