Evergrey – A Decade and a Half (2011)

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Ever since the release of their debut album “The Dark Discovery” back in 1998, Evergrey has been one of the best bands in their genre and with their newest incursion “Glorious Collision” they have widen the gap between them and any other band. With “A Decade and a Half”, the band presents a double-CD release filled with most of their greatest songs and a few live versions that keep things interesting.

As one of our friends pointed out, if you really wanted a ‘greatest hits’ release of the band, it should have been 8 CD’s long and feature every single album they have released in their years of existence. However, we can’t really have that, but this double-CD has enough to please most of the fans of the band. Kicking off with “The Masterplan”, the band delivers their characteristic guitar work and excellent vocals of Tom Englund. As the future has shown (in “Glorious Collision”) the band’s sound centers around Englund’s efforts and everybody else can be easily replaced.

Instead of focusing on the tracks that have just been incorporated from previous releases, we rather talk about the interesting live tracks that make this release shine and be more than just another ‘compilation/greatest hits’ release. “Blackened Dawn” and “For Every Tear that falls” are two live songs on the first CD that deliver a higher emotional level than the original versions and sound like a million dollars. The unplugged version of “Wrong” is a very different sounding rendition of this song from “Glorious Collision”, but the vocals are just spot on to transfer the original emotions behind this song.

On the second CD we have “Waking up Blind” and “When the Walls Go Down” as live songs, and Englund and company completely do justice to such great songs from the band. The mood is as dark and somber as ever and with that live audience cheers, the songs become instantly more magical. Our favorite song of this release has to be the unplugged version of “Frozen”. Since we missed out on the band’s unplugged show at Prog Power USA last year, we are especially drawn to its ‘jam session’ feeling.

Evergrey is an excellent band and with this compilation album new fans of the band can catch up a bit into their rich discography. If you are a die-hard fan of the band, the live versions and the unplugged songs should make this album attractive enough for you to add it to your collection.

Band: Evergrey Album: A Decade and a Half
Label: Steamhammer / SPV

Release: November 22nd, 2011

Oficial Site myspace
Genre: Progressive/Power Metal

Country: Sweden

Rating: 88/100
Year: 

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