Several ballads such as “Goodnight Boston” supply some breathing space in the 72 minute set. In all it’s a romp through eighties metal-land and proves again that the musical mind of Henning Pauly always manages to absorb the essence of what he is currently inspired by before taking it a step beyond. When it ends it is almost a shock to look out of the window and remember that it is in fact 2009.
Forgotten Suns – Innergy
We’re speeding off to Portugal now for a listen to Forgotten Suns and their album Innergy. It kicks off with a scene from an emergency theatre where someone’s life hangs in the balance and opens out into the full scale power riff that sits behind “Flashback”. An impressive start.
First thing to note is that today’s Forgotten Suns has changed dramatically since their 2000 debut. Previously the band was endlessly compared to the likes of Pink Floyd, Rush, and Marillion. Certainly there was a strong influence of a whole cross section of the above spliced in with symphonic prog. It led to them supporting Fish, The Flower Kings, and Pain Of Salvation among others.
Innergy, apparently a hybrid of ‘energy’ and ‘inner’, delivers a power romp through prog metal with all the necessary solos and impressive vocals to make for an impressively hard driven album. The constantly shifting “News” leads to the initial riff of “Doppelganger”. This is a hybrid of numerous elements including something of the Germanic suggested within the title. It all slots together and somehow works.
The defiantly prog “An Outer Body Experience” is something else again, staking its claim for album highlight. “Outside In”, “Nanoworld” are huge in scale and ambition. “Mind Over Matter” closes with another voice over introduction and a track that ends the album on a high. It’s a great moment when it opens out.
Despite sometimes being in danger of risking repetitiveness it is also an album that deserves several plays to fully appreciate it. That sounds contradictory but it does begin, with familiarity, to open out and is therefore worthy of several plays. More driven and purposeful than previous Forgotten Suns efforts Midnight Sky Masquerade can also be seen as being adventurous and ambitious. In many ways they pull it off, in others they fire close to the target.
Metamorphosis – Dark
Heading back across Europe to beautiful Switzerland we call in on Metamorphosis the musical creation of multi-instrumentalist Jean-Pierre Schenk. This is the fourth album since 2002 and follows on from the debut After All These Years, Nobody Cares (2003), and Then All Was Silent (2005).
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