Tristan Harders’ Twilight Theatre
Drifting Into Insanity

Good power metal should be ridiculously catchy, almost to the point of it being embarrassing. Kind of like the Twilight Theatre by Tristan Harders, otherwise known from the band Terra Atlantica. Harders had this project to pass the time when the pandemic made touring impossible due to all the restrictions, and it is said to be similar to Terra Atlantica but less dramatic and with a more personal lyrical direction. Terra Atlantica didn’t impress me a few years ago, so I guess the hope was for the differences to be large enough for this album to be better.

I would say that they are right when claiming similarities with Terra Atlantica as the two are similar, Harders does the vocals and things like that. But there are some differences, one of them is that this album feels less anxious than what Terra Atlantica did, and it is probably catchier. The style is akin to the early 2000s style of power metal, and the album isn’t lacking when it comes to shamelessly ripping off what other bands have done already. Then again, how much can you vary a certain style of music?

There are no surprises when it comes to the songs we get, it is an expected selection. Accessible and fans of the power metal genre should find this agreeable – it is easy to like. The catchiness is ridiculous at times and the best stuff you really want to sing along with. It is a likeable release, but also a forgettable one as it offers nothing that we haven’t heard before and we tend to think the earlier works have something more, probably because they were original at the time.

So in the end you get a fairly typical power metal album that should please Harders’ fans from Terra Atlantica as it is similar but better, and it should go down well with most power metal fans. But of course, you will forget this one as there have already been release several more this year that are of the same style and calibre so, you could say that Harders makes it well but there are about fifty albums of a similar quality in this genre every year, and some that are better as well. That makes it pretty uninteresting from the bigger perspective, but still; when it is ridiculously catchy it is hard to be too anything but positive.

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