Visions of Atlantis – Ethera (2013)

After blowing us away with “Delta”, we had high expectations for “Ethera” and the band seemed to drop the ball on a few tracks in this release making it less impressive. However, not all is lost and Visions of Atlantis manages to deliver some good and bombastic songs that make up for the ground lost by some of the inferior tracks.

With “Delta” achieving an awesome level of explosiveness and bombastic elements, the band tries to start “Ethera” with a similar approach but introducing some futuristic keyboard sounds that don’t really work with the rest of the elements in this release. “The Ark” is a clear example of this, making it sound very disconnected. On “Machinage” near the end there are some truly horrible spoken sections accompanied by some robotic auto-tune like effects that just made us want to pierce our eardrums.

After the initial shock and experimentation, the release starts to smooth out in to more of their older style with “Vicious Circle”, “Hypnotized”, and the weird “Taluc’s Gate”. This last track has more of the futuristic crap in it, but we can easily ignore it thanks to the solid vocal leads of Maxi Nil and the duets with Mario Plank. One of our favorite tracks in this release is the epic “Burden of Divinity” and it’s very catchy and bombastic nature, something very similar to what we loved from “Delta”.

With more experimentation going on with “AEON 19th”, we can’t help but wonder if they band actually heard this song before recording it. They have some great emotional passages, but some of the electronic/futuristic stuff just makes everything else sound bad, a terrible combination the way it’s being delivered here. Closing with “Bestiality vs. Integrity” (very odd name and decent song), and “Clerics Emotion”, the band again returns to their usual style and produce some pleasant songs.

We understand that bands want to experiment with new stuff, but sometimes they have disastrous results and that is what a few of the songs in this release show. The whole futuristic vibe in this album is pretty bad and we wish the band should have stayed doing what they do best. However, we still have 60% of the songs that are quite decent and almost compensate for the horrors committed. If you like “Delta” and don’t mind skipping a few tracks and scratching your head at why the tracks are arranged the way they are, go and get “Ethera”.

Release: March 22nd, 2013

Genre: Symphonic Metal

Country: Austria