Royal Hunt
Dystopia

Royal Hunt has been around for a while and sports a long list of releases, fifteen studio albums where we find paradoxes, life, fear, a clown, and now also a dystopia. This Dystopia is a conceptual album that has a simple yet elegant cover that should look good in a record shelf somewhere. The question is if it deserves a place in that theoretical record shelf, that is one of the thoughts I had when taking on this record.

Epic is one word that comes to mind when listening to this album, epic in regard to the grand arrangements and powerful symphonic sound. Some say that Royal Hunt is a progressive band, I am not sure how progressive it is to do more or less the same for over twenty years and over a dozen albums. The impressive sound is noteworthy, as is the strong vocals by DC Cooper. It is a pretty varied album with long tracks, and I think a too long playing time.

This album is good, but it is more or less what you can expect, there are no surprises positive or otherwise. I think they make solid stuff with grand arrangements; it is kind of like one of those blockbuster movies, really nicely produced but often very little content in order to be as inoffensive as possible and that is what I think of Dystopia as well. It is a likeable album but not a memorable one, it lacks standout tracks. It is also an album that lacks imagination, Royal Hunt has done many of these albums and I want more exciting stuff than what they offer here.

If you like what Royal Hunt usually do you will probably like this album, I think that it is good with some strong tracks like The Art of Dying and perhaps also Snake Eyes. There is a however though, and that is the lack of ideas and memorability. The album works, but it is hard to see why you should get this album when you already have by Royal Hunt as this isn’t better than most of which they have done before.

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