Rexoria
Ice Breaker

Swedish velvet heroes with a vocalist that is a queen of light return with their new and second album Ice Breaker. It is an album that looks really good with great artwork, it has a dozen tracks and one of those is in Swedish with a guest appearance from Niklas Isfeldt who is most known for being the vocalist of Dream Evil. We liked the previous album, the debut one, called Queen of Light and we have even interviewed the band earlier and have published an article about them in case you want some extra reading about the band and their new album where the title track looks a little bit at the situation with rising global temperatures. But what about the album then, is it any good?

Musically it is melodic metal with some touches of folk and some nature elements. Pretty fresh sound and female vocals are often a good thing on the melodic album, and then add a good production and a fairly fresh sound. It is a logical sequel to the first, the sound is a bit more mature, a bit fresher and there are more ideas – creatively it is a step up compared with the previous album. The variation is good and the playing time is kept sensible, perhaps the idea to release it on vinyl helps with the playing time. It is a good thing that they keep playing time pretty short, and that they end with a folkish power ballad in Swedish.

That power ballad called Vår Verklighet (Our Reality when translated) is a brilliant song and my favourite of the album; it ends the album in a great and memorable way. There isn’t much, if anything to complain about with this album – perhaps one or two more of those really memorable tracks would have elevated this album even higher. Nevertheless, it is a really strong album that should not be overlooked if you enjoy the melodic metal genre.

An album that fits really well amongst the trees in nature or just listening to when writing metal reviews, and a recommended album that I think is a challenger to my top ten list of 2019. You should really have a look at this very fine album, it looks good and it sounds really good – why not check it out?

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