Band:
Roy Khan – vocals
Thomas Youngblood – guitar
Glenn Barry – bass guitar
Casey Grillo – drums
Oliver Palotai – keyboards
Discography:
Eternity (1995)
Dominion (1997)
Siége Perilous (1998)
The Fourth Legacy (2000)
Karma (2001)
Epica (2003)
The Black Halo (2005)
Ghost Opera (2007)
Info:
Recorded at Gate Studios and Pathway Studios, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2007
Producer: Sascha Paeth and Miro
Guests:
Miro – orchestrations, keyboards
Simone Simons – female vocals
Amanda Somerville – female vocals
Sascha Paeth – guitars
Ghost Opera Choir – Amanda Somerville, Thomas Rettke, Robert Hunecke Rizzo and Cinzia Rizzo
Links:
kamelot.com
myspace
steamhammer
For you who have been following this band since the early nineties or middle nineties know the sound of the band. The band is very melodic with lots of orchestration massive choirs and majestic classical pieces mixed up with a very melodic metallic sound topped by the charismatic Roy Kahn from Norway on the vocals. Sophisticated melodic rock/metal if you like to shorten it a bit. If you like to Rhapsody of Fireate it, it will probably be called theatre score metal. The Genres can be many but it is still the classical that meets the metal that is the common denominator in the music of Kamelot.
Kamelot is a band of Americans, one Norwegian and a German fellow, they started as a fully American band but has become more internationalised with the year, Oliver from Germany was added in 2005 and is the latest member coming into the band.
Ghost Opera is musically a natural progression of what has come before, if you have listened to this band in the past you will recognise what comes out of the speakers. Then, is it better than for instance The Black Halo? Hard to say, it is a close call and even though Ghost Opera probably is better and more skilled on the writing side and the production side I will give a ever so slight advantage to The Black Halo which I hold for a little more solid or a little better if you so prefer. Musically Ghost Opera is a step forward but In my opinion it misses in a few points, the albums falls progressively to be not that interesting at all in the end. It all starts high flying with the brilliant violin intro called Solitaire and all is great and even better as the first real song Rule the world start. The problem is that after the third and amazing song Ghost Opera there is really nothing to entirely grip you in the way this two songs do. At first it pulls you in and almost blows you away with amazing melodies and songs and then it gets more or less indifferent, excellent flawless music but I miss the real soul and mood from the first two songs.
Sure the first songs have often been the most amazing on the prior albums as well, think Center of the Universe, March of Mephisto and so forth, but there are greater songs coming later, it isn’t bad songs coming later on the Ghost Opera but they just can’t break the barrier created by the greatness of the first two songs. In Epica there is several brilliant songs coming later and the same goes for the Black Halo or Karma for that matter. So in comparison this albums sounds better but the songs are not as good as they are on earlier albums like the ones I have mentioned.
It is hard to say where I place this album but Karma is probably better, same for Epica and The Black Halo, just below that trio as number four by Kamelot, a great band who never disappoints, Ghost Opera could have been better, but luckily Kamelot continues to deliver quality music, this one may be a bit to conservative for my taste, it is nice and good but it lacks the real “pop” or whatever it should be called. I say that Karma is to top note still but I am not entirely sure, what I do know is that Ghost Opera, Second Coming or not is not really up to the task in the diffuse quality of good songs.
Soundwise a true masterpiece and listening to the first pair of songs you are ready for a six in the very least probably a seven, but then as the record moves on you start slowly loosing parts of the grade until it reaches a five which is an excellent grade.
Kamelot never disappoint even though they take the easy way here, more bravery and novelty is wanted for the next album.
Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahn! (for whoever has watched one of the most awful sci-fi films ever)
HHHHHHH