Stranger Vision
Wasteland

Cool, the artwork is really attractive for this second album by the band Stranger Vision. Their first album Poetica also had a nice artwork but wasn’t that great in terms of music. I think Stranger Vision had a solid debut, so what about the continuation? They once again enlist the mixing and mastering services of the great Simone Mularoni who stands behind many great soundscapes. And they make a conceptual album based on Thomas Stearn’s Eliot, something that can mean epic soundscapes. They have done a few videos on the concept, a clever thing, though I didn’t watch the videos so I cannot really comment on their quality.

When I first listened to this album I thought that it sounds very much like Hansi Kürsch in the first song, and that is of course because he is singing in that track. Tom S Englund from Everygrey also makes an appearance on this album. It is epic power metal, it has choirs, orchestral arrangements, things like that, the usual stuff you find in an album of a conceptual nature. Good production, modern sound, but long, and not very varied, makes it a bit hard to go through it all, especially since it is best in the beginning of the album.

When I hear the opening tracks I get ready to proclaim that Stranger Vision has evolved into a very exciting band, it is a great title track, but the problem is that Hansi Kürsch guest appearance is the highlight of this album while the rest of it is good yet not that interesting. We have heard it before, and the album can almost feel tedious at times. Not that I want to be negative or anything, it is a fine, a good album, I like listening to it though my interest wanes as the album progresses. I find their more progressive edge is positive in terms of atmosphere and sound, but a bit negative in terms of bringing the interest of me as the listener into the story. A slight step forward compared with the solid debut, a solider second album can be a good way to express it.

Fans of the power metal genre, fans of bands like Eldritch, Symphony X, Evergrey, Blind Guardian for example, will be likely to find this album interesting. It is a well-produced, a well-performed, relatively well-written, and most of all it is a very solid album. And it has a great looking cover, it might be worth some curious inquests.

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