Borealis - The Offering

[WorldOfSilence]

From the AFM Records Facebook page:

Watch out for some Canadian progressive power metal coming your way soon! Borealis will release their new album "The Offering" on March 23rd!
"'The Offering' is our best creation yet, it's a mix of "Fall From Grace" and "Purgatory" with an atmospheric twist. We feel better than ever and can't wait to take this album on the road." - Matt Marinelli (vocals)




Apparently this one is a concept album. All three of Borealis's previous albums have been excellent, so I'm really looking forward to this.

I particularly like Matt's vocals. He sings in the same rough emotional style as Tom Englund from Evergrey. For some reason I love that style in Borealis, but Evergrey have never done it for me.

 

[korruption]

The cover art made me think of Blind Guardian's "Somewhere Far Beyond".
This interests me.

I particularly like Matt's vocals. He sings in the same rough emotional style as Tom Englund from Evergrey. For some reason I love that style in Borealis, but Evergrey have never done it for me.

Matt's vocals certainly changed, but I'm not a big fan of the less clear/more gravelly tone he used on Purgatory and World of Silence MMXVII. Especially the latter, since the comparisons are much more obvious (with the exception of 'Eyes of a Dream' of course).

Nonetheless I'm still very interested in hearing this when the time comes.

 

[KingsGene]

Some more detail here:
ONTARIO’S BOREALIS – NEW ALBUM OUT IN MARCH

Preorders are available at this location.

 

[korruption]

New song is up:

 

[BrandSpragins]

I am in the boat of what the hell happened to Matt's vocals on the last 2 albums?? Needless to say - love the vocals here and glad to see the cleaner side back. I hope this is a sign of what the whole album is like vocally. As for the song - does not really do it for me. Pretty safe and sounds really similar to the tempo and style of Evergrey.

Due to the vocals alone - I will be buying this cd.

Brand

 

[korruption]

Well here's another...


It's too bad about Matt's vocals - whether by choice or something else, I hate the change and I'm not buying this album.

Edit: To be fair, I'll wait until it's been released and if I somehow like enough of the other songs, I might consider buying it used. I'm pissed cause Purgatory and World of Silence MMXVII burned me pretty bad and I was hoping that just maybe I'd like this if I heard it.

 

[korruption]

Looks like it leaked. Someone uploaded the whole thing to YouTube! For shame! Shame, I says!

So I listened to it.
*ahem*

I'm glad that some of the songs are better than expected (admittedly the last two songs even gave me a happy chub). My main gripe is with the vocals and how Matt sounds like he's close to dry-heaving at times. The reviews lead me to foolishly expect more of the singing in the first two albums, but it's often his newer style where he doesn't sound like he's in total control of his tone.

 

[WorldOfSilence]

I've been listening to the two released songs (Sign of No Return and River) a lot in the last week.

Sign of No Return is a decent song with a good riff which wouldn't have sounded out of place on Purgatory. IMO, River is the better of the two songs. It has everything I like about Borealis - emotional vocals, soaring keys and crunching guitars, all wrapped in a great song.

Matt's gruffer vocals took me a while to get used to on Worlds of Silence MMXVII, mainly because I was used to his smoother singing on the original. I now have no real preference between the two. I think he is a great singer in either style, but the gruffer vocals do give Borealis a more unique sound.

 

[korruption]

Vocal styles changing can sometimes hit a bad note with me (no pun intended... ok maybe a little), as my comment for 'River' will show. The harsh vocals don't particularly bother me as I do listen to a few bands that do that, it's the parts where Matt sounds like he's singing between a whisper and a shout which really bothered me in the latter song, as he did that a lot on 'Purgatory', which I don't listen to anymore. I actually enjoyed the more aggressive style a lot in 'The Awakening', so I'm for it! I just miss his focus on the cleaner vocals for the most part, cause his clean vocals are fucking great.

As another example, the same happened with Symphony X's 'Paradise Lost' and the much more aggressive approach Russell Allen used there. Russell sounding almost needlessly pissed off in songs like 'The Sacrifice' and 'Seven' made me wanna put my head through a wall, but mostly I was just in a fetal position.