Music Review: Euro Round-Up - Forgotten Suns, Metamorphosis, Oresund Space Collective, The Phantom Band, and Shadows Mignon

Remember The Magical Mystery Tour? The idea was for The Beatles to hire a psychedelic coach, fill it with strange people, and drive around Britain filming whatever came into their heads.

Having been inspired by that, Eurorock is taking a similar ride around some interesting European releases, albeit forty years late. So roll up for a ride delivered in a If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium approach from the film a year later.

We have prog-metal, eighties style metal, Floyd inspired prog, Scotland’s mysterious Phantom Band’s brilliant debut, and the most wonderful of psychedelic space trip albums imaginable. So join me and get absorbed within the diversity that European music can bring.

In no particular order, geographic or otherwise, it's A Magical Mystery Tour indeed.

Shadow’s Mignon – Midnight Sky Masquerade
First stop is Germany, and the home of Henning Pauly who came to notice through his work with Frameshift and Chain. For the Shadow’s Mignon project he again teams up with vocalist Juan Roos who also appears on one of Pauly’s earlier albums Credit Where Credit Is Due. That record explored nu-metal combining it with explorations into industrial territory.

In fact, Pauly is a busy man and his musical journeys have seen him go punk on Greatest Hits with The Anthologies, writing a rock opera called Babysteps and working with country musician Matt Cash on his album Western Country. Having heard some classic eighties metal he teamed up with Juan Roos and keyboard player Stephan Kernbach and formed Shadow’s Mignon. He then set about writing a set of metal influenced tracks for an album.

Pauly explains on the promo blurb, "We were able to do so many things and use so many sounds we are told we ‘can’t use anymore’ because they are out of date. So we went back to our roots and made music that cannot live without them". Defiantly they have come up with an album that delivers an assault of metal that unashamedly powers in with “A Dragon Shall Come”.

In many ways it all seems a little tongue in cheek as it pays powerful homage to eighties metal. It is, however, almost as authentic as some of the real thing was complete with some dodgy lyrics of warriors, battle Gods, beasts, and dragons. Having said that, if you take the lyrics as they are hopefully intended and concentrate on the essential energy of the musicianship, then it scores reasonably well.

Article Author: Jeff Perkins

Jeff is a writer who lives in France. He writes CD/DVD box sets, music reviews and has had a book published about David Byron of Uriah Heep. He is 'busy' exploring the music of Europe with his wife Debbie and dog Dylan. It's Dylan that does the writing of course. …

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