:: Evergrey - Torn

Evergrey

For a straight five album run, Swedish progressive power metal act Evergrey seemingly couldn’t set a foot wrong. Although the change between releases was subtle, every album seemed to allow the band to take another step up the ladder of commercial and critical success, with the follow-up to 2004’s ‘The Inner Circle’ promising to be the album to really break the five piece act in a major way. After taking a well earned breather with their stop-gap live album/DVD release ‘A Night To Remember’ in 2005, the band returned with their highly anticipated sixth album ‘Monday Morning Apocalypse’ in 2006. And that’s when the problems began. The idea of using an outside producer, and the move towards to a more accessible sound didn’t win the band any new fans. Instead, it proved to be quite a disaster in the eyes of long-time fans, with many claiming that the band had well and truly sold out. While ‘Monday Morning Apocalypse’ did prove to be a different sounding release for Evergrey, I feel that the album became somewhat of a grower, and inevitable could be put down as an experimental release that failed in the short term, but earned itself a place in the band’s history as a worthy release in the long run. Learning from their mistakes, the five piece act are back with a new label, and a new album in ‘Torn’. And while the album will no doubt sound like a welcome return to form for many fans, I can’t help but feel like there’s nothing on ‘Torn’ that hasn’t already been heard from the band before. On the surface, ‘Torn’ is a great sounding album. The band’s familiar dark progressive tones are back with a vengeance on the keyboard front, while the guitars bear a strikingly raw edge that helps give the songs a greater metallic feel. And then of course there’s Tom S Englund, who puts in a commanding passionate and desperate vocal performance on every song. The problem is that very few of the songs on ‘Torn’ leap out of the speakers as truly memorable. The opening single/promotional video clip ‘Broken Wings’ is a solid track, and one that succeeds in announcing the band’s return, while ‘When Kingdoms Fall’, ‘Fail’, the acoustic infused title track ‘Torn’ and the heavy ‘Still Walk Alone’ reaffirm that Evergrey are back to what they do best. But overall, ‘Torn’ is light on the progressive elements and a little too heavy footed on retreading familiar ground. Evergrey is still great band, and ‘Torn’ is a solid album, but in the end, I guess I was hoping for something a little more groundbreaking this time around.