A Flame to the Ground Beneath

I don’t think I like this album for the same reasons as other people do. Yes, Daniel Heiman’s vocals are majestic, clear, powerful and all the other usual adjectives, but it’s the whole package that does it for me with A Flame to the Ground Beneath. It’s not the admirable technical prowess of the man that gets me, it’s the way he emotes and interacts with the music behind him, creating an atmosphere. It is a wild, thunderous atmosphere of ancient warrior pride, evoking long, wide fields of grass with dark, ominous clouds hanging over it. A battle might happen here, and when it does, it will be one rife with magic and spells. Fire will fall from the heavens, and sorcerers will sling lightning like discs from the Olympic Games. That’s the kind of atmosphere this evokes; that’s about the best way I can describe it. Adventure. Just pure, spirituous, cosmic and fantastical adventure, through medieval castles and plains to the darkest realms of space. I can definitely listen to this and get this mental image of an unsuspecting hero undergoing this philosophical, inspiring, introspective journey with all sorts of cool, mystical things going on. And it all started with A Flame to the Ground Beneath…

Uh, yes, I was talking about the album…too many people pay attention to the man’s technically brilliant vocals and not enough attention to the music, which is quite full of merit on its own, too. And that’s why I’m here. So…get ready, because this is going to be a long one.

I’m going to say up front that I don’t think this is quite the be-all-end-all of power metal that some people do, and this review was really hard to write, since I’ve liked these guys for years and I really do think they make some good music. I just don’t think they’re quite as awesome as the reviews make them out to be. The album is a little too structured for my liking with those ambient tracks they stuffed in between the real songs, and those are too long altogether – half a minute or so is okay, but two and three minute interludes are really, really pushing it. “Deliverance” in particular is just useless; three whole minutes of spacey nothingness in place of what could have been another song. Really lame. Just give us the songs without interludes in between, guys; we’ll like you that much better for it. What, did you really just think you had to make it look like a full 9-song album? We would still listen to this if you only had six tracks on it.

I really hate to start off a review with the gripes, but the actual songs on here are so damn good and so technically sound and perfect that it sucks that we have such a biting detractor. Maybe they figured we couldn’t handle a whole album of their mind-blowing brilliance and so they just had to put the interludes there to make sure our fucking heads didn’t explode from the amount of intensity and power on display. That’s probably a good idea, but I still think the album would benefit from being more condensed and less spread out between atmospheric interludes. It would make the whole thing more unified and allow it to feel more like a singular musical “trip” than an overly structured and laborious piece of work. Which is always a plus for me at the very least.

So…where were we? Ah, yes, Daniel Heiman’s voice and its relation to the quality of the rest of the music. Heiman has a great voice, and it’s pretty much perfect for the genre he’s playing. He has a ton of range and diversity to his voice and it seems like he can do pretty much anything – diving headfirst into a silky, shimmering wail that reaches the stars, twisting his voice into a more muscular shout to a powerful, battle-ready midrange. I think my favorite vocal moment on the album, even topping the famous “Highlander,” is this, from the beginning of “Cry of a Restless Soul”:

Storm...you almighty, earth, seas and flames
Here I am standing
Bare in my honesty
Calm in the moonshine
Starlight rests my eyes
Pain wakes me conscious
Truth guides my mind

I imagine most of you have already heard this album upon reading this review, as it’s been famous for 7 years as a power metal herald, but this really is the best vocal moment on this album. It is not without its competition, but just the way he intones these lines in that mystical, deep half-growl with those ethereal keyboards backing it is just awesome.

The songwriting is really mature and interesting, and I use those words a lot, but the Lost Horizon boys really have a good handle on it. The riffs are dense and fluid, tumbling out of the gates like fine white water rapids, mingling with the spacey, triumphant keys masterfully. The drumming is always spot on with a ton of crushing beats and charging gallops that are subtle enough, but still really well done. The songs are all really epic and dynamic, diving and sweeping through tons of different moods and parts in every single track. Hell, “Lost in the Depths of Me” and “Highlander” have enough different parts to make an entire album of a band like Pyramaze or Iced Earth’s mediocre songs. And they even prove they can still get down and write a catchy single with “Again Will the Fire Burn,” with its mean groove and condensed structure. It’s probably the worst song on here, but it’s still pretty damn solid.

“Pure” sweeps through the speakers with an acrobatic drum intro and then winds into a catacomb of subtle density and deliberate restraint, making for a real firecracker of a song when you realize how cool it really is. “Think Not Forever” is similar, although even more progressive in nature, with a heavy Queensryche bent and a hovering, wailing chorus that will stick with you for a long time. I have to say, though, as much as I hate to go with the crowds…yeah. The longest songs are the best ones. Witness the sheer jaw-dropping ecstasy and masterful scope of the epic “Lost in the Depths of Me,” which dives and weaves a tapestry of majestic melody and power metal might. “Cry of a Restless Soul” is the most traditionally oriented song here, with its galloping riffs and savagely warrior-like tempo cutting through the artistic fabric of the rest of the album with a razor-barbed cutlass. This song is a magnificent journey through the eyes of a tribal-painted warrior on a bloodsoaked quest; primal, colorful and passionate. Spellbinding, really; probably my favorite song here if I had to name one.

“Highlander” is the big one, though, as everyone and their goddamned grandmother will tell you. It’s a great song. It’s got a massive scope of vision, and it travels through a lot of really magnificent sounding parts, taking you from the highest mountain, where the wind blows your hair in all different directions, to the fields of battle, where you must fight to be The One, cutting off heads and communicating with the Gods themselves. Oh, and Heiman’s range is stunning, he can hit a million notes that most of us can’t dream of, blah blah blah. Isn’t it more exciting to describe how the music makes you feel instead of how technically accomplished it is?

So, yeah, this is a great album. It’s not the One Saviour of Power Metal, but it is definitely a stunning piece of metal from a time when they were dropping out like golden nuggets in Europe. It’s not the absolute best, but it is up there anyway. Lost Horizon were a great band because they commanded tremendous songwriting prowess, had a vocalist touched by the gods themselves and really knew how to conjure up atmosphere and feeling. I think that ticks all the boxes, doesn’t it? Nobody really sounds like these guys, either. The best word, although I already used it, is fluid. They craft songs with an ease that is like they’ve been doing it for centuries. They’re like archaic mages having perfected their craft. And since we haven’t heard a new album from these guys since 2003, I think it’s safe to say we need them back to help us conquer the forces of evil once more.

Come back, Lost Horizon. You were always cool.