A Flame to the Ground Beneath

Whenever I discover a new band I'm interested in, I always go through their discography in the chronological order. Thus, my first real taste of Lost Horizon was their debut, Awakening the World (I was already familiar with the intro and the legendary final singalong of Highlander, but that's it). That album is an excellent piece of highly energetic, uplifting and atmospheric EUPM, with lots of variety and epic moments that constantly keep me captivated. Being impressed by that album and knowing that it's generally glossed over in favor of the follow-up, I approached A Flame to the Ground Beneath with high expectations. "I can't imagine how breathtaking this album has to be to overshadow a beast of an album such as Awakening the World", I thought naïvely. Little did I know that Lost Horizon seriously dropped the ball when writing this album.

When I discovered Lost Horizon, I instantly compared them to Manowar due to the "shirtless band members" album covers; a comparison that proved to be more precise than I initially thought as I further listened to the band. Unfortunately, Manowar has an impeccable talent for writing dullest, most boring riffs imaginable, and this is a trait Lost Horizon shares as well (on this album). Just look at the verses of Lost in the Depths of Me and see how the band is trying to get all Call to Arms on our asses. That's the problem that permeates the whole album: the riffs are mostly 6/8 or triplets chugging which are in no way imposing or outstanding. Nor do they support the vocals and the leads, they are just there for the sake of being there. There are some interesting riffs on this album (mostly in Cry of a Restless Soul and Think Not Forever), but the majority leave no impression at all. No riff monsters such as Sworn in the Metal Wind to be found here (the middle part of Think Not Forever is as close as the album comes to that territory). And it's not just the riffs, either. Vocals aside, most of the album is middling and lacking in substance.

This ties in to the fatal flaw of this album: it attempts to be several times more grandiose than Awakening the World, despite having only a half of that album's musical ideas. It is almost ten minutes longer, yet it sounds like it has much, much less material than Awakening the World. The songs are 7-8 minutes long on average (synth-only tracks aside) and have enough musical ideas for about half of that amount of time. The album is seldom repetitive, but the majority of the songs still fell overlong and tiresome to hear in their entirety (with some songs being better than others in this regard). "Overambitious" is a word that perfectly describes this album. The band has 20-25 minutes of amazing, "Kamelot's purple albums"-tier music and attempts to make a 50 minute album out of it. That endeavor is doomed to fail.

As already mentioned, the vocals are the only consistently amazing element of this album (and let's be real here, the only reason people praise this album as highly as they do). Daniel Heiman sounds are mix of Fabio Lione, Roy Khan and Eric Adams. He has a huge range and an immaculate control over his voice, although it may take a while to get used to his tone (once, I was showing my friend Highlander to see where the "WOAH-OH-OH-AH-AH-AH-AAAA-HA-AH-AH-AH" meme originated from, and he immediately noted that despite singing excellently, Daniel sounds like a wimp; something I agreed with at the time). He can also be compared to King Diamond or John Arch in the lead guitar-like way he utilizes his vocals during some moments. However, unlike those two, Daniel's vocals don't add a lot of depth to the songs. His vocals are consistently enjoyable (with the shriek at 7:14 of Highlander being the zenith of his performance, though I think that the shrieks at 1:44 and 1:54 of Pure are excessive), but aren't multidimensional like Diamond's and Arch's vocals. Another way to say it is that, although Daniel's performance is great throughout the album, the vocal lines themselves aren't (with 3:33 of Pure, 2:29 and 6:15 of Cry of a Restless Soul and the majority of Highlander being notable exceptions). This means that the boring segments of the album remain boring, in spite of Daniel's top-notch singing.

Other than the vocals, the drums are noteworthy and I'd say they are unjustly overlooked. They're not constantly amazing, but they do have their moments of utmost brilliance (most notably the intro roll of Pure and the numerous chops in Cry of a Restless Soul). But my favorite part of the album drum-wise is the 6/8 to 4/4 time signature shift at 9:40 of Highlander. It's a simple and seemingly trivial detail, yet unbelievably effective.

The leadwork is very disappointing. The leads themselves are great, but too scarce. They usually appear at the end of verses very briefly to spice them up a little and nothing more. It's as if the band knows they are sorely lacking ideas and have spread the leads sparingly in hopes that the music sounds more visceral than it actually is. The leads tease me more than they please me, or in other words, they make me wish they lasted longer or were better implemented more than they actually enrich the music. Don't get me wrong, they're not entirely unenjoyable. They just feel like massively wasted potential (just like the whole album).

And I have to address the synth-only tracks. You thought Varg's ambients are boring? These tracks make Dauði Baldrs and even Morbid Angel's dungeon-synth songs sound like Klaus Schulze's Picture Music. Especially with titles such as Transdimensional Revelation and Deliverance, you'd think these songs will be astral, psychedelic masterpieces. Instead, they are half-assed "80's space sci-fi" fluff with no atmosphere or substance. Like the intro of Savatage's Power of the Night, but lamer and longer. They're merely yet another way the band needlessly stretches the runtime of this album.

Of the six actual songs, two are pure filler: Lost in the Depths of Me and Again Will the Fire Burn. Bland, boring, unexciting, uninteresting, whatever adjectives synonymous to these there are perfectly describe these two songs. Not even the vocals and the leads can save them. The former of the two does get better as it goes on and picks up the pace towards the end a little, but not enough to make the song worthwhile, while the latter has nothing going for it whatsoever due to its lame whispers and pedestrian melodies.

Fortunately, the rest is better, though even these songs would benefit of being a minute or two shorter each (Think Not Forever being possibly the only exception). Cry of a Restless Soul is easily the best song here. Energetic riffing, compelling melodies, lots of epic moments, it's as good as anything on Awakening the World. Some people say that the spoken section is the best part of the song, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around that as the chorus, the shriek at 5:11 and the chanting at 6:15 are all vastly superior to it. I mean, it isn't bad, but it's needless and is certainly no The Sentinel or Night Crawler. Still, it doesn't ruin the song, as it's definitely worth it to endure 20 seconds of cheese for 8 minutes of awesomeness.

Highlander is another praiseworthy tune. This one is basically the EUPM equivalent of Jag Panzer's The Crucifix or Fates Warning's Epitaph. Not quite as good as either of the two since there are segments that should've been shortened (such as the "na na na" part), nor is it as good as other legendary 10+ minute long EUPM epics (And Then There Was Silence, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Treasure Island, The Raven Child etc), but the general effect is the same. It accomplishes what the rest of the album fails to: it's a midpaced 6/8 voyage with a huge atmosphere, clever foreshadowing (compare 4:36 to 10:30) and absolutely climactic finale. I'll assume that this is also the reason why this album receives so much praise, as that outro can easily fool the listener into thinking that the album was better than it actually was.

The remaining two songs are a bit more ordinary, but still enjoyable. Pure has a few dragging moments and excessive shrieks, as well as the fact that it sounds like recycled The Kingdom of My Will, but all that is made up for by the soul-melting main lick, the gallop after the chorus and the singalong at 3:33. Think Not Forever is a groovy rocker with interesting guitarwork (both riff-wise and lead-wise) that completely explodes during the solo. Fuck yes, this is what the album desperately needs more of, instead of dishwater-dull meandering which is merely a failed attempt at being epic/atmospheric at best and pointless filler at worst.

This album would've been a masterpiece if Lost Horizon wasn't so full of themselves. Hell, if this thing was an EP with Pure, Cry of a Restless Soul, Think Not Forever and Highlander, it would've been good. But no, they had to bloat and stretch the album to absurd proportions for no good reason. It's hard to say if the band ran out of ideas and hoped that the vocals would carry them through or if they got lazy because they realized they have one of the finest vocalists ever. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't change the fact that they are biting off much more than they can chew, and the album as a whole greatly suffers for it. I know I'm repeating myself here a lot, but really, whatever "Doing too much with too little" analogy you may think of is perfectly applicable here. The debut does not suffer from any of the issues mentioned here. Hell, even the ambient pieces are interesting there. That one is much more worthy of your time and the legendary status than A Flame to the Ground Beneath.