Vanishing Point from down under (Melbourne) releases their fifth
album. It took almost seven years to make the successor to 'The Fourth Season'.
Not a lot of things have changed since then, perhaps you can say that the album
sounds a bit more progressive and technical, but the songs still sound very
melodic and catchy.
In
the line-up you don't see a member responsable for the (orchestral) keyboard
parts, but there are quite a lot to hear on this new album. This sees to it that
the songs sound very melodic and a bit bombastic. Fortunately the guitar riffs
are rather in front of the mix also, which makes the album rather heavy instead
of wimpy. Silvio Massaro is a good singer with a powerful sound. In fact you can
describe the music as a mix of European hardrock/AOR with progressive and
power metal elements. Mix Sonata Arctica, Helloween, VandenPlas, Masterplan,
Threshold, Royal Hunt and some Dream Theater and you get something like this. As
a guest you find Tony Kakko, singing parts on the track "Cicrle of Fire".
Besides some rather up-tempo tracks there are slower ones like the power-ballad "Let the River Run". Here you hear that Silvio is an excellent singer indeed.
After a heavier track the song "Story of Misery" is again a slower one with lots
of piano and keyboard parts. The album has a nice balance of heavier and more
melodic emotional tracks, which brings enough variety to keep the entire album
interesting. If it was a good idea to end with an accoustic instrumental
track..... I personally am not fond of that, because the album just petered out.
With this fifth album Vanishing Point has matured and shows that they are a band to
reckon with.
