Visions of Atlantis – Maria Magdalena (2011)

With its latest incarnation, Visions of Atlantis delivered earlier this year one of their best albums to date with “Delta”. In “Maria Magdalena” follows the same path of showing off the amazing vocal chemistry of Maxi Nil and Mario Plank. Featuring six songs, this new MCD will keep fans satisfied after listening to “Delta” hundreds of times.

The opening track of this release “Maria Magdalena” is a cover of 80’s synth-pop artist Sandra, and it is actually a pretty decent and listenable cover. The tempo of the song has been nicely increased and with added distorted guitars sounds like a million dollars. The duet between Mario and Maxi is very similar to the original song, but with that nice Metal edge we expect from this band. The catchy chorus section is also nicely transferred to the VoA sound.

In the new songs “Melancholia” and “Change of Tides”, we have the same theatrical style we loved from “Delta”. The guitars are powerful and nicely surround the overall melodic aspects of the band’s sound. The keyboards and vocal melodies are top notch as always allowing the music to be very bombastic. The melancholic edge of “Distant Shores” makes this track our favorite of the album, in particular the chorus section. You can immediately identify the amazing production behind this release since you can listen to all elements blend in together seamlessly.

The re-recording of “Last Shut of your Eyes” from the “Cast Away” release is excellent and brings this already amazing song to a whole new level with Maxi’s vocals. The power ballad nature of this song makes it a very remarkable one, and will surely make new fans of the band try to dig up their earlier albums (even though they have a different female vocalist). The closer “Beyond Horizon” nicely delivers atmospheric elements that showcase the band’s ability to go from very powerful and hectic songs, to slower paced and very emotional tracks.

Overall, after their amazing full-length “Delta”, the band has nicely produced a more concise and effective release. While short in nature (26 minutes), this MCD will leave you craving for more songs from the band. VoA has reached a great level of maturity when it comes to writing music, and with their amazing vocal duets there is nobody that can stop them from reaching to fans all over the world.

Release: October 25th, 2011

Country: Austria