Opus Atlantica - Opus Atlantica
2003 - Regain Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Regain Records website.
I'm sorry... I can't find any way to write this review particularly objectively. It's been a very long time since I've hated a band as much as this, and it's going to be nearly impossible to keep this enmity from showing through. Ostensibly a neo-classical melodic power metal band, Opus Atlantica actually sound like somebody reworking substandard Silver Mountain and Yngwie Malmsteen tracks as elevator music, or perhaps midi files. Considering the line-up (members of The Flower Kings, Andromeda, Nonexist, Midnight Sun), I would have expected a lot better, but sadly this is toothless, annoying, and utterly cliched.
Let's look at the various offences committed over the course of this album. Firstly, and most obviously, there's the production. Such a criminally thin and inoffensive production has absolutely no place on an album in any metal sub-genre. The bass is utterly inaudible, the drums clicky and buried somewhere in the background, and the guitars totally lack any bite or presence at all, enhancing the feel that the whole thing is someone's attempt to turn a metal track into the kind of holding music you'd hear on a multi-national corporation's phone line.
Secondly, there's the music itself - completely uninspiring and totally cliched from start to finish. They pull every typical power metal trick out of the hat - frantic arpeggiated riffs, constant double-bass drumming setting the pace, keyboards and guitars duelling out solos, upper-register vocals with soaring choruses, and slowed-down power ballads which are perhaps even more cringeworthy than Timo Tolkki's last solo album.
Thirdly, there's the attempt to cover Bach's Anthem Cello Suite In G Major... frankly, I shudder every time I hear it. All of the power and bombast of the original is lost in a mire of masturbatory fret-twiddling and ivory-tickling, and further crippled by the diabolical production.
The only saving grace is the fact that the album only lasts just over half an hour, so if for some reason you find yourself captured by a sadistic maniac who straps you to a chair and forces you to listen to this tripe, you won't have to suffer it for too long... unless they leave it on repeat and flee the country, in which case I can only suggest deliberately swallowing your own tongue to end the torture.
Unforgiveable.
0/10
2003 - Regain Records
By Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Regain Records website.
I'm sorry... I can't find any way to write this review particularly objectively. It's been a very long time since I've hated a band as much as this, and it's going to be nearly impossible to keep this enmity from showing through. Ostensibly a neo-classical melodic power metal band, Opus Atlantica actually sound like somebody reworking substandard Silver Mountain and Yngwie Malmsteen tracks as elevator music, or perhaps midi files. Considering the line-up (members of The Flower Kings, Andromeda, Nonexist, Midnight Sun), I would have expected a lot better, but sadly this is toothless, annoying, and utterly cliched.
Let's look at the various offences committed over the course of this album. Firstly, and most obviously, there's the production. Such a criminally thin and inoffensive production has absolutely no place on an album in any metal sub-genre. The bass is utterly inaudible, the drums clicky and buried somewhere in the background, and the guitars totally lack any bite or presence at all, enhancing the feel that the whole thing is someone's attempt to turn a metal track into the kind of holding music you'd hear on a multi-national corporation's phone line.
Secondly, there's the music itself - completely uninspiring and totally cliched from start to finish. They pull every typical power metal trick out of the hat - frantic arpeggiated riffs, constant double-bass drumming setting the pace, keyboards and guitars duelling out solos, upper-register vocals with soaring choruses, and slowed-down power ballads which are perhaps even more cringeworthy than Timo Tolkki's last solo album.
Thirdly, there's the attempt to cover Bach's Anthem Cello Suite In G Major... frankly, I shudder every time I hear it. All of the power and bombast of the original is lost in a mire of masturbatory fret-twiddling and ivory-tickling, and further crippled by the diabolical production.
The only saving grace is the fact that the album only lasts just over half an hour, so if for some reason you find yourself captured by a sadistic maniac who straps you to a chair and forces you to listen to this tripe, you won't have to suffer it for too long... unless they leave it on repeat and flee the country, in which case I can only suggest deliberately swallowing your own tongue to end the torture.
Unforgiveable.
0/10
