Since 1995 Evergrey shows the dark side of Progressive Metal. Fear, paranoia, death, mourning, shame – all these somber feelings and thoughts were in their songs throughout ten albums. And in the beginning of 2019 the time has come for their 11-th LP The Atlantic.
An album ends a trilogy started in Hymns For The Broken (2014), continued in The Storm Within (2016). “It’s about relationships, beauty and darkness, about fortune and grief, about love, hate, despair, joy and everything connected with it. Life is like journey across the ocean on the way to distant shores” – tells Tom S Englund.
The Atlantic is much heavier album than its predecessors. When the band worked on an album, their studio was robbed. Among other things, all the works on The Atlantic were stolen – “the worst fucking time ever”, says Englund. So Evergrey were forced to start over again. But every cloud has a silver lining: musicians put all their aggression and anger into a music. Henrik Danhage and Tom S Englund wrote lots of groovy riffs with some Djent touches. It’s powerful, aggressive but only till the moment when Tom starts to sing. He transfers to listener the frustration, fear, despair and some blind hope easily.
Yet, Evergrey plays Progressive Metal, so not all the details can be heard from the first listening. Like Rikard Zanger’s keyboards, for example. They play somewhere in the background of heavy riffs, creating the baseline, occasionally moving to the forefront (“End Of Silence”). The only exception is an instrumental “Tidal”. The same thing happens to Johan Nieman’s bass (“Currents”, “Departure”).
And, of course, there should be a ballad in an album, otherwise Evergrey won’t be themselves. In this album it’s melodic “All I Have” with a little bit edgy intro and melodic chorus with a little touches of pop music but without some clichés.
Sea topic of an album is emphasized with the sounds of radars, water, birds’ calls and radio talks. They set the tone, help the listeners to immerge deeper into an album and turn The Atlantic into a very emotional whole story. Sometimes it’s fierce and formidable, sometimes smooth and calming. It gives hope and in the same time showing the hopeless.
To sum up, The Atlantic is a powerful, strong and very emotional work. I will hardly listen to it every day, but from time to time I’ll come back to this album.
The Atlantic was released on January, 25 via AFM Records.
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