August 2016 Album of the Month: Evergrey’s The Storm Within
Monday, 5th September 2016
The end of summer brings about a bevy of metal releases as labels and bands get excited about the impending change of seasons. Which makes this month’s pick Evergrey all the more appropriate – a Swedish metal act that encompass all facets of power and progressive metal from an emotional and moodier standpoint throughout their long career. The Storm Within with its conceptual love theme contains a treasure trove of memorable songs, special female vocal guests, and this pulsating sense of vulnerability rarely attained in music today.
An excerpt from Matt Coe’s 9.5/10 review, which posted on August 28, 2016:
Careers ebb and flow like tides or ships that go bump in the night. In the case of Sweden’s Evergrey, they made a strong early impression since starting in 1995 – a progressive/power metal band that was willing to dig deeper in terms of tones and emotions to become heavier and restrained when called for song to song, album to album. It’s no secret that the band’s second album Solitude Dominance Tragedy is in this scribe’s top 5 metal records of all time. Shifting members and labels though would make the latter 2000’s bumpy in terms of overall acceptance, Monday Morning Apocalypse receiving a lot of ‘commercial/sell out’ criticism. Righting the ship with the return of guitarist Henrik Danhage and drummer Jonas Ekdahl for 2014’s Hymns for the Broken, the revitalized quintet appears ready to reclaim a premiere throne in the ever evolving power/progressive metal scene.
All 11 tracks reach out to touch the soul – the grey-oriented cover color scheme alluring in another descriptive set up to the contents within. Early to tell if The Storm Within will eclipse acceptance-wise the beacon of early Evergrey discography – but after numerous full playbacks, it resonates deeply to all of the outstanding qualities one expects from this benchmark act.
Read the entire review HERE.
