Vanderlust
s/t

I guess they are a band with wanderlust, ready for some cosmic adventures. The cover suggests that this album is of a sci-fi and space variety, it is almost like a lighter version of a Borg world we see on the cover – I like the cover by the way. I think there in an air of wanderlust over this album, and who can resist such a thing? Is it even possible?

Heavy or progressive metal would be the style, not overly complex but a little bit adventurous in terms of musical progression. The singer is pretty good, the variation is decent, it is an album that is a little bit more interesting than some. But it is not the cosmic adventure it would seem to be if you look at the cover art, that suggests something more dramatic than what we are offered on this album. Still, it is quite varid and that helps the playing time of nearly fifty minutes to appear reasonable despite the fact that fifty minutes is a long playing time. Another good thing is that they avoid the pitfalls of many progressive bands, they avoid the needlessly long tracks that many progressive albums are plagued with.

Vanderlust is a good album, the tracks are good and interesting and it should appeal to fans of most styles of metal. I would have liked it to sound a bit more specey though, it feels too much down to earth for an album looking like this one. They should have given more into the wanderlust and gone further, perhaps where no fan has gone before, or something exciting – they should have gone somewhere out in space and it should have sounded like it. Lots of should have beens here, but it feels a bit like they promise something with their cover and then give us something way less extraordinary. And while it is good it is not the most memorable album either, great proggers often have space for one or a few hits, this albums doesn’t have that.

Vanderlust debuts fairly well, not the most exciting album ever – but how many bands do those? I think they do well enough to merit a check from those into the progressive type of metal, their sound is relatively fresh and interesting, and I wonder what the future has in mind for this band. Perhaps they give into their lust to wander a little more the next time, and then we could be in for a great adventure.

HHHHHHH