2015 Symphony X Album News

Don't want to analyze, but it is really awesome. In fact it resembles Angra's new approach, which is preserving its core signature elements and bringing sth new to the table, ignoring some resemblances to some other bands. I believe it is a matter of being a fan or not. I'm not an Angra fan, so I didn't like their new approach. (And it satisfied its dedicated fans, and got positive feedback from the people that met with them with their last album, in here.). For me, Nevermore is a very promising song for the album, and this lyric video ROCKS!!!
 
Not too bad. It has a lot of that PL/Iconoclast vibe in the riffing and the verses, the lyrics are as expected, and there's less keyboard than I like. However, that pre-chorus and chorus is really good. Great vocal melodies, neat picking, and a real sense of emotion. I love the "big" sound of it.

So yeah, great chorus, and the rest is decent. But please, for the rest of the album - MORE KEYBOARDS!
 
Wow, new song already! That was fast. It feels a little closer to The Odyssey than the last album. I like it overall.

Russell sounds very reserved. It's pretty obvious he was holding back from doing too much rough vocals (which I'm thankful for), but somehow it didn't feel like there was the usual level of energy. Also, Pinnella is practically MIA. What's up with that?

Guitar solo starts with same lick as Serpent's Kiss' solo ends! Anyone notice the same thing?

Yeah, although I didn't realize exactly what song it was from at first, lol. I wonder what the connection is that made Romeo decide to do that. There's all the references to DWOT in this song, but I'm not sure how Serpent's Kiss relates to anything.

EDIT: Oh, and I guess those last.fm tracks lengths are accurate after all.
 
I`m baaaack. You know what that means... Arguing! Yeaa you surely missed that...

I'm relatively optimistic. No 'Lord of Chaos', 'Bastards of the Machine' or 'Children of a Faceless God' Rhapsody of Fire bullshit. Cover is alright.

You wanna tell me that "Kiss of Fire", "Hell and Back", "Without You", "In My Darkest Hour" are not typical power metal bullshit (btw much worse that any of Iconoclast titles)? At least try to sound like you say something that makes sense :)

Cover is pretty lame for me. I mean idea is pretty cool, maybe this dark tone fits the album, but these masks look like those from Dance of Death as one of you said so. Also I just noticed that the lower face has no horns, it`s just an illusion caused by those triangles all over the centre.

I definitely would've preferred if they went with a theme that they hadn't already explored multiple times, but oh well.

You`re 100% right, I`m really dissapointed with the main theme of the lyrics. It should be something completely new, this heaven & hell stuff is getting boring.


What about Nevermore?
I don`t know, I don`t have clear opinion on this song. Somehow it`s lame and amazing at the same time...
The best parts of vocals are suddenly cut out and thrown away from melody twice. Lyrics are the worst SX lyrics I`ve seen yet. They sound cool, but those are just random sets of generic power metal words repeated way too many times. Intro is fast and nice, but very short and non-developed and if there is nothing more to it in Overture then it`s average at best. Also the introduction to the third stanza is weak.
But the instrumental part is great, solo is much better than in 95% of metal songs (Romeo is just a genius with his talent to make interesting solos), riffs of course inspired. Chorus is generic but I like it. SX is trying something new and we can hear it. Nevermore has giant potential in it but the outcome of what they`ve done with their ideas is like 5 or 6/10.
 
Its the single people, keep that in mind. The single has to appeal to the vast majority of the "metal people" in order to get hooked. We SX fans know this song cannot be their best one. I refuse to believe that.

This x1000 times. To me Serpent's Kiss might be my least favorite song in their entire catalog down there with shades of grey lol. Also, end of innocence is I think one of the weaker songs on Iconoclast and rarely gets listened to anymore. Plenty of great songs on both those albums in my mind (yeah yeah...I know you all hate Iconoclast but w/e I like it and am a long time fan) so one single does not an album make.
 
This x1000 times. To me Serpent's Kiss might be my least favorite song in their entire catalog down there with shades of grey lol. Also, end of innocence is I think one of the weaker songs on Iconoclast and rarely gets listened to anymore. Plenty of great songs on both those albums in my mind (yeah yeah...I know you all hate Iconoclast but w/e I like it and am a long time fan) so one single does not an album make.

Agreed. And in fact I think Nevermore is a great song, and I cannot imagine how mighty an album that can be, if this is one of the album's weakest songs. :Spin:
 
Here's a nice little quote:

"And Russell, he's just a natural," notes Romeo. "When he first heard the songs, he had mentioned that he really wanted to sing more, even though the material was heavy. So we put a lot of emphasis on his abilities and making the choruses strong vocally"

[ame]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Underworld-Symphony-X/dp/B00XZABJRA/nuclblas-21[/ame]

lots of other promising sounding bits in the product description.
 
I think the cover would look a lot better with one minor change. Make the band logo either red or orange. Or hell, any other color than black since black is the color of the rest of the cover!

Something so simple, screwed up, just to irk me to no end...
 
I think the cover would look a lot better with one minor change. Make the band logo either red or orange. Or hell, any other color than black since black is the color of the rest of the cover!
Something so simple, screwed up, just to irk me to no end...

Okay, I fixed it for you.

 
My guess is Kiss of Fire is the neo-classical number. Like Out of The Ashes or Seven. It's a very 90s Yngwie Malmsteen sounding title.