ANDROMEDA - II=I
Century Media - 2003
By Rodrigo Escandon
II=I is the second Andromeda album and things have definitely changed for the Swedish band. For starters, there is a new singer in David Fremberg who replaces Lawrence Mackory (in reality Lawrence was only used as a studio singer for Extension of the Wish and the band had every intention to find a permanent singer). After enjoying Lawrence's singing so much in the first album I was really hesitant about accepting David as the new singer. Lawrence had brought a unique and totally different voice to the progressive metal genre and while David has a great singing ability I feel that the freshness that Lawrence provided has been lost and at least vocally Andromeda does not distinguish itself anymore.
The second big change is the music. The tempo has slowed down to compensate for the heavier sound. The guitar sound is more full and crunchy than before and the virtuoso elements that Johan provided in Extension of the Wish has been toned down and that is another shame. There are still plenty of areas where Johan really belts it out like the solo in "Mirages" but they are short leads and they are just too few of them. Maybe it is a conscious maturing effort by the band and/or Johan but yet another exciting element of the band has been lost. The keyboards played by Martin are more in your face this time around and it just seems that instead of having the guitars be the focused or the more flashy instrument like it was in Extension of the Wish that role has fallen to Martin in II=I. While having the keyboards do this is not all bad, I just wonder why there was not room for both instruments like it showed in the first album?
Now with all this being said it should come as no surprise that my favorite song is the instrumental "Morphing Into Nothing" because of how similar in style and speed it is to the first album and the fact that there is no singing. This song is how I expected Andromeda to develop. There are elements of both the new and old and they are combined perfectly. The one part that is amazing and one should really pay attention to runs between 1:42 to 2:26 and it is repeated once more by the end of the song. "Morphing Into Nothing" may also shine brightly since it is put between two of the songs that I find really boring, "Two is One" and "Castaway".
So the verdict is in, II=I is definitely the first real disappointment of this year for this reviewer and only time will tell if this new direction will help or hurt Andromeda.
Century Media Website
Andromeda Official Website
Century Media - 2003
By Rodrigo Escandon
II=I is the second Andromeda album and things have definitely changed for the Swedish band. For starters, there is a new singer in David Fremberg who replaces Lawrence Mackory (in reality Lawrence was only used as a studio singer for Extension of the Wish and the band had every intention to find a permanent singer). After enjoying Lawrence's singing so much in the first album I was really hesitant about accepting David as the new singer. Lawrence had brought a unique and totally different voice to the progressive metal genre and while David has a great singing ability I feel that the freshness that Lawrence provided has been lost and at least vocally Andromeda does not distinguish itself anymore.
The second big change is the music. The tempo has slowed down to compensate for the heavier sound. The guitar sound is more full and crunchy than before and the virtuoso elements that Johan provided in Extension of the Wish has been toned down and that is another shame. There are still plenty of areas where Johan really belts it out like the solo in "Mirages" but they are short leads and they are just too few of them. Maybe it is a conscious maturing effort by the band and/or Johan but yet another exciting element of the band has been lost. The keyboards played by Martin are more in your face this time around and it just seems that instead of having the guitars be the focused or the more flashy instrument like it was in Extension of the Wish that role has fallen to Martin in II=I. While having the keyboards do this is not all bad, I just wonder why there was not room for both instruments like it showed in the first album?
Now with all this being said it should come as no surprise that my favorite song is the instrumental "Morphing Into Nothing" because of how similar in style and speed it is to the first album and the fact that there is no singing. This song is how I expected Andromeda to develop. There are elements of both the new and old and they are combined perfectly. The one part that is amazing and one should really pay attention to runs between 1:42 to 2:26 and it is repeated once more by the end of the song. "Morphing Into Nothing" may also shine brightly since it is put between two of the songs that I find really boring, "Two is One" and "Castaway".
So the verdict is in, II=I is definitely the first real disappointment of this year for this reviewer and only time will tell if this new direction will help or hurt Andromeda.
Century Media Website
Andromeda Official Website
