Ultimatum
Virtuality

Gamers, virtual realities, power metal, kind of like Tron in a way. It is the fourth release by Finnish quartet Ultimatum, a band that has decided to make their first conceptual album and it is about gamers getting lost in a virtual reality game – isn’t something akin to the film I mentioned in an earlier sentence? And to make this story they have enlisted the help of four guest musicians, mostly vocalists but also a bassist. It is ambitious, and the graphics is pretty cool, but what about the music?

Arguably this is power metal, with influence of progressive and with some electronic touches. Using several vocalists of which one is a female gives some dynamics to the vocals, but the male vocalist sounds a little bit too similar to really achieve this sensation. I think the sound is pretty good, but I wouldn’t say that the album is very dynamic, it tends to melt together into something like a cacophony rather than a nuanced album – this might be partly down to the eternal playing time that reaches past seventy minutes.

My reflection is that this album is pretty dreary, long and not very exciting. I think it is fair to say that I have heard better albums than this one, as they don’t quite pull of what is a good and fairly fresh idea. They have the right ingredients but doesn’t quite manage to mix them into a recipe for successful music, but they should be applauded for daring to try something and risking the failure that I think they end up with. Still, if they are pleased with the result they have succeeded in some way even though I have a hard time seeing who would be the audience for this album.

Error, says the computer voice in one of the songs on this album, and that is kind of what I feel when listening to this one. It doesn’t live up to what I was hoping for and I think the band tries but doesn’t quite get there. I will probably keep my eyes open for future stuff by Ultimatum, but I wouldn’t recommend getting this one as you are unlikely to play it more than once.

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