EVERGREY – Glorious Collision

The rising of the new Evergrey album, Glorious Collision, is the beginning of a new era for the veteran Swedish Dark Metal band. Besides being business mates, the Evergrey lineup were also good friends. When it came down to choosing between the love of business, which is Evergrey, and their friendship, an important decision had to be made. The band’s founder / producer, Tom Englund, decided, because of the fact that their current outfit couldn’t last longer in the same format, to break up the line-up … leaving him only with his Keyboard man, Rikard Zander.

In comparison the emotive Torn album, the Glorious Collision stands as one of Evergrey’s heaviest and most atmospheric albums. Even though both outcomes shared the same musical prowess, there is something different here. Maybe that occurred due to the strong production endeavors by Englund & crew, or maybe due to the process of making a different sort of contradiction between the music and the never ending personal cognitive and emotive songwriting of the band. Both attributes were always strong elements that were bound to its creators. With the rather tragic change of environment, there was a silver lining for Evergrey. The new members, both experienced and fresh to the band, helped the remaining members, Englund and Zander, to make Glorious Collision as powerful as it turned out to be. Furthermore, the environmental change accompanied with it a new orientation to the music into a more diverse course.

The variety of Glorious Collision is undeniable … the darkened wrestle between Metal and Rock is apparent, from chunky headbanging Heavy Metal tunes such as “Frozen”, “Out Of Reach”, and “Leave It Behind” to the comfort zone of highly emotive sensations of what this group has been making since 1995. With the upgrades of those kinds of tunes by the insertion of modern Rock elements, Evergrey turned out to be even catchier than before and less technical in their Metal imagery. Some of the successful exciters are “You”, “The Phantom Letters”, “Restoring The Loss”, “To Fit The Mold”, and “The Disease …”.

If you thought that the danger of dismemberment would threaten the existence and the likes of this band, you were terribly mistaken. The Glorious Collision signifies that Evergrey will continue on … delving deep into their sea of dark feelings. Moreover, Tom Englund, singer and guitarist, proved that he is a noble man, a friend, and professionally, a hell of a singer and a great duet partner with his wife. Not many vocalists in today’s Metal are able to channel such deep passion as he does. In the end, fans have to respect Englund’s decision (and his talented peer Zander) to continue on with Glorious Collision, because it was hard to keep on waiting for new material from this band.

Tracklist

1. Leave It Behind Us
2. You
3. Wrong
4. Frozen
5. Restoring The Loss
6. To Fit The Mold
7. Out Of Reach
8. The Phantom Letters
9. The Disease …
10. It Comes From Within
11. Free
12. I’m Drowning Alone
13. … And The Distance

Lineup

Tom S. Englund – Vocals, Guitar
Marcus Jidell – Guitar
Rickard Zander – Keyboards
Johan Niemann – Bass
Hannes Van Dahl – Drums