REINXEED – 1912

ReinXeed is a Symphonic Power Metal band from Sweden, and the adventurous brainchild of Tommy Johansson. Johansson, who is also known for his other project, Golden Resurrection, is back with the fourth ReinXeed album titled 1912.

The content of the album is completely about the story of the sinking of the Titanic. Each of the 11 tracks is devoted to telling a piece of the tale surrounding the events of the Titanic on the night of April 15, 1912. This is certainly a risky endeavor — devoting an entire album to one historical subject matter — however, ReinXeed undauntedly pulls it off.

Musically, each of the tracks comes at you with a very fast and furious pace. All of the songs are filled with high energy guitar riffs, and lightning-quick double kick drums. Johansson is the primary musician, taking on the lead vocal and lead guitar duties. His subdued, yet high-ended vocal style is very similar to that of the legendary Steve Walsh from the Classic Progressive Rock band Kansas. The guitars are extremely fast-paced and Johansson is able to shred some mind-blowing guitar solos that seemingly no mortal man could imitate.

Though all of the tracks are very melodic in nature, unfortunately, the downside to playing Power Metal music at “ludicrous speed” is that some of the melody gets drowned out by the fury of the instruments. At times it becomes difficult to get a feel for the true drama, emotion, and tragedy of the Titanic story because of the persistent driving beats and riffs. The tempo of each track is very similar and although there are some good orchestrated segues, the album lacks an epic symphonic ballad, which would ultimately tie the whole work together.

One of the better songs on the album is the track “The Voyage”, which starts out with some cool sound effects and orchestrations. It also has a slower rhythmic, driving tempo instead of the usual ultra-fast quick beats. Johansson’s vocals also stretch to a stimulating higher range during the chorus, which actually gives the listener the opportunity to feel the life of the story, which is difficult to capture in some of the other tracks.

Even though the idea of writing an entire album around the story of the Titanic works, overall materially the album falls short. There just isn’t enough musically captivating material to keep your attention. The album is good if heard in bits and pieces; however the lack of diversity and variety really hurts this one.