A Hero For the World
West to East Part II - Space Ranger

To us here at Hallowed there has been nothing heroic about the creations of the band that calls itself A Hero For the World, or Mr Kaasgaard who is the one hiding behind that moniker. And since the inception 2012 there has been countless releases with both enormous plays and albums, this is the second album in this story, a story of a journey I think. This time it goes where no man has gone before, and takes to space, in The Orville no less. You know that ship from Seth MacFarlane’s show; it is the second song and the one that launches the album into space. But don’t believe they have taken the Ayreon route, the concept is still the same as before but I think they have outdone themselves this time, both better artwork and better music.

Power metal, that’s what it is. Quite melodic and catchy, decent vocals and there is quite a lot of emphasis on the keyboards – that’s kind of cool I think. The theme is quite spacey, the music is less spacey and more of the conventional melodic power metal style. I think they try for the grandiose but fail a little bit in that remark but the variation is okay even though the album could have been a bit shorter as 72 minutes is very long. More depth would be needed to pull off an album that long. It seems a bit like Kaasgaard falls in the trap as many one-man creators do, it is difficult to see yourself that some have to go and I think they would have been wise to hire a producer if only to get some feedback on the material. That probably would have helped shortening the album and in the process made it more dynamic.

The album is good; it is really the first time I think that it is actually nice to listen to an album by A Hero For the World. The earlier works has been dull but this one has a bit of life and I can even overlook the eternal playing time as the songs are good and the album works well – and it has a good ending track, almost great. I kind of like this album, it shows joy, it seems as they are enjoying what they do and for the first time I think they have done quite well. Still, I can’t help thinking that they should slow down, make less music and take more time and paying more attention to the music that they do. But I doubt that will happen, but if they did they might actually come up with something really exciting.

It is a good journey, perhaps on The Orville to Jupiter and Mars and some other nice and exciting places in the solar system and the universe. Yeah, like I prophetically suggested last time I wrote, this new album turned our very fine and I can recommend that you check it out if you like the power metal genre. I would describe this album as a very positive surprise, and it is always good when those come around.

HHHHHHH