A Flame to the Ground Beneath

WIthout wanting to get too deeply into a very boring Personal History of Myself, I really enjoyed this album 15+ years ago but a few very good moments aside I don't nowadays. It's entirely possible that this album just hits harder if you're a hella earnest teenA. Equally possible that the album has a few big old weakpoints that are kinda obvious in hindsight.

It's kinda front loaded in that the best tune by a mile is the opener. Well, the proper opener. It's uplifting, it's energetic, very catchy, the lead line is a lot of fun, and anyone who's got those early 20s sads would certainly identify that "There is a beauty that I long for" etc etc. The problems that are more present later in the album- jumbled, rambling songwriting, that it really isn't remotely heavy or viseral (even for europower) a complete and devastating lack of riffs, metric fucktons of cheese- are there, they're just buried under, in this case, a bunch of cool shit.

But when the cool shit ends- or at least when it doesn't dominate- it gets hard going. Lost in the Depths of Me is cool at the start but thoroughly overstays it's welcome as it rides its' three or four ideas deeply into the fucken ground. Cry of A Restless Soul has the cheesiest spoken word section this side of Agalloch and/or Manowar- it's another well overlong one. I get wanting to paint on a big canvas, get that epic vibe going, but most of the tracks here could be a fair bit shorter with absolutely no drop in quality. The synths are consistently super cheesy, offer nothing in terms of interest, and serve as a good reminder as to just how deeply odd some european things are. I can't imagine them flying here.. entirely possible I'm giving my countrymen too much credit. Anyway, they could be completely jettisoned without a single drop in quality, the layering would still be fine- make the guitars play different stuff, so on and so forth.

Honestly, imagine hearing The Song of Earth and being like "yes, I am glad they have a keyboard player".

The guitars are a big problem. I don't think I'm some almighty RIFF FIEND who insists on a dark angel-esque amount of riffs per tune. I just like to hear guitars play cool stuff, which I don't think is a particularly controversial opinion. AFTHGB has plenty of pretty fun, lyrical, if not slightly samey lead parts, which is neat. Aside from those moments, it's chugging or ringing out chords, with very few exceptions. Yes, this shit is very vocal centric- that doesn't mean you can't write interesting parts, it's no excuse to just chord out the whole thing. The rhythm guitar is at a bad folk songwriter level; maybe this is fine for some but I've always hated it and that's no change now. I want big guitars in metal. Vocals pretty much hold the whole thing up, all "cheap shitty apartment with expensive fittings" kinda shit. He's not a bad lyricist- or at least he could be much worse- and he has some hella range. But let me just repeat that I want big guitars in metal. If I wanted vocal driven music I would listen to hard rock.

Looking back on this bit of angsty nostalgia, I guess if I wanted to be harsh I'd say that when I was a dude who was a massively overweight loser with no hobbies, a desperate need to touch grass and big tfw no gf vibes (let's just say I'm glad this preceded social media) I found this deeply inspirational/aspirational. I'm still a thoroughly shit bloke but evidently I have enough cool things in my life nowadays where the lyrics about being a restless soul and so on don't stick anymore. Good for the genre, perhaps, but that's very faint praise.