Evergrey have been at this game for more than 25 years now, so they must be doing something right to have reached studio album number 13.
Unlucky for some, but for these rather morose Swedes it’s pretty much business as usual, with mainman guitarist/vocalist Tom Englund leading from the front, his passionate and often soulful vocals perfectly complementing their trademark crunching prog metal.
The group are no strangers to dealing in melancholia; Wildfires, Midwinter Calls, Ominous and The Orphean Testament are the pick of the bunch for emotional anguish and soul searching here, while Reawakening and Blindfolded inject some brutal riff power into the gothic bleakness.
At times it feels like misery overload, but Evergrey are masters of the genre.
