Portrait of the Abyss Within

This is the fifth album by the Italian metallers, the second of their power metal era and in my opinion the best of the five. It is more mature and focused than their previous releases and from the first moment makes their purpose quite clear. The band's intension is to make a breakthrough to wider audiences something that is not bad for any band unless this attempt results to a loss of personality and a shameless copy of other well-known artists but this is not the case with Eldritch here.

Eldritch with "portrait of the abyss within" deliver to us one of the finest examples of modern melodic power metal without making any compromise regarding the heaviness of their music or the content of their lyrics. They just make a simple thing that most of the new power metal bands seem unable to do and that thing is to create songs that are memorable from the first time you hear them. How many times have we listened albums with perfect production, impressive leads and thunderous drums but just ten minutes after their end we don't remember anything of them? This album features all of the above plus at least six songs that force you to sing along from the beginning to the end and remain to your head for a long time after you have finished listening to the cd.

To give you an idea of how they sound, i would say that this album is a little bit heavier and more thrashy than "enlighten the darkness" by Angel Dust and more melodic than "dead heart in a dead world" by Nevermore with a touch of Fates Warning in the vocal lines. There are of course many more bands i could mention here but you'd better read the "check also" list at the end of the review.

So with this release Eldritch seem to have a full package: Power metal hymns like "forbidden" or "the world apart" which by the way is an instant hit with a colossal opening riff, power ballads like "blindfolded walkthrough" or "shallow waters" and more aggressive songs like "slow motion "k" us" or "drowning". The prog metal parts are still present but very few copmpared to their previous albums and fortunately there are no keyboards at all. To all the above add a dark feeling that runs through all the songs and you've got yourself one of the best albums of 2004 and not only.

Note that the limited digipack includes two bonus songs which are better than some others in the standard version so if you decide to get this cd go for the limited version.

Check also: "of human bondage" - Angel Dust, "parallels" - Fates Warning, "never, neverland" - Annihilator.