Evergrey – The Atlantic

Label: AFM Records
Releasedate: 25.01.2019

Swedish melodic prog-rock giants Evergrey is back with their 11th album! I know right! Tom Englund and his crew are still at it and deserve the respect that they’re already getting from their long-time fans. The album is called “The Atlantic” and it’s the 3rd and the last one of their conceptual quest that started with the albums “Hymns For The Broken” and “The Storm Within”.

The band boldly says that “The Atlantic” is their heaviest and the most intense album in their history, I have to agree that it’s surely intense and undoubtedly multi-dimensioned.

Alright, the album kicks off with A Silent Arc, and it has an official video released on Youtube, it has impressive drone-shot scenery of the dark seas which sets the theme of the song and the other tracks in general. However All I Have was the first song I heard from the album and I was sold in that instance! It’s the Evergrey we all liked from the beginning.  I like the prevailing presence of atmospheric keyboards in this album. Most of the songs consist of 3 or 4 different parts which are beautifully intertwined, and that’s a common structural form for proggy bands like this from the Northern parts of the world. Hence I used the term “multi-dimensional” to depict the songs in the album. A Silent Arc is a great example of this. Of course the riffs throughout the album are heavy and overwhelming contrasting with Englund’s very distinct and crystal clear vocals. You can also distinguish the bass sound in each song. So the mixing is amazingly done.

As for my favorite tracks off the album besides All I Have; I liked the tracks which sounded simpler and structured in a less complex way, stating this I do not mean it in a negative sense whatsoever, it’s just my ears are accustomed to plain and simple heaviness without the shenanigans of the prog genre. So, Currents and This Ocean definitely addressed to me more in the ways that they are catchy, atmospheric and damn hard and heavy. The guitar solos in the album are exquisite and discernable as much as Englund’s vocals.

So hats off the the guys for delivering what they have like it’s their first day in the industry. If you like the kinds of Symphony X, Kamelot and Dream Theater, you definitely should check out Evergrey and “The Atlantic” just might be the ideal album for you to do it.

Line up:

• Tom S. Englund (vocals, guitars)
• Henrik Danhage (guitars)
• Rikard Zander (keyboards)
• Johan Niemann (bass)
• Jonas Ekdahl (drums)

01 – A Silent Arc
02 – Weightless
03 – All I Have
04 – A Secret Atlantis
05 – The Tidal
06 – End Of Silence
07 – Currents
08 – Departure
09 – The Beacon
10 – This Ocean

Links:

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Evergrey/
Official http://www.evergrey.net/