X-Word 5 - New Universal Order 2008

Talking and dreaming about the future, are you? Search no more, here is what will happen: Five men will be chosen to survive and to fight for the survival of heavy metal in a future universe. Does it sound appalling, sorry appealing?

The band was started by previous Hammerfall base player Magnus Rosén and along with him there are some interesting name, like Nils K. Rue of Pagan’s Mind. The lyrical themes are as I have already explained before, centred around the future of the metal genre, how will metal survive in the future and so forth. The musical themes are centred on futuristic sounding heavy metal, which basically means loads of additional keys and strange sounds, a little different melodies can also be found.

Then, is this metal of the future? A thousand years more futuristic even? Well lets turn to Morbo, the news monster: “I will destroy you, bwaaah”, he states furiously. I don’t know what relevance that has for this album, but he makes a certain point and it is against that and against other preconceptions this album will have to fight even though many fans of the members respective bands will buy the album.

I get the same feeling of this album as I get from the debut of Pagan’s mind. That means I find it quite impossible to really get into, and is it really that new and modern? It sounds remarkably much like the Pagan’s Mind debut Infinity Divine, which is an album I really don’t care much for and the same really goes for this album. It is not that it is difficult to get into, it just doesn’t feel like a unity, the songs are not cohesive and just flies away in all directions simultaneously. I sure like strange and progressive stuff but this is really not it, this has nothing progressive about it. It just feel like a collection of songs added into tracks, it feels a little bit like the almost hundred track promo copy I got of this record, like a hundred small pieces just added together with absolutely no thought behind it.

This is really not good, it has nothing appealing to me, the end track is quite okay though, not good but okay. I guess that last sentence sums it up about this album, despite all those big names and faces, there is really nothing here that can merit a decision to buy this album.

I think most fans of respective members main or previous bands will be deeply disappointed with this album, I know I am.

Metal of the future with nothing new about it, it is really not fun at all to listen to this or like Stewie Griffin would have said, “where’s my money man?”

HHHHHHH