A Flame to the Ground Beneath

To those unfamiliar with Lost Horizon, an update is in order. The band plays power metal, similar to the 80s, early 90s style of bands like Manowar, but with the intricacy and speed of bands like Helloween. It’s fairly easy to compare Lost Horizon to modern bands like Hammerfall (and they have their roots in the 80s anyway…) too.

Despite being such an old-fashioned and conventional band, Lost Horizon has a lot of strengths. The band plays with an amazing energy and speed. Their vocalist Daniel Heiman is pretty incredible when comparing him with other power metal vocalists and guitarist Wojtek Lisicki is a damn creative guitarist who never gets boring.

This description holds true for the album I’m reviewing now, A Flame to the Ground Beneath, but something has changed. To understand what I mean, I have to bring up their debut. It was an album filled with energy, creativity and speed. Awakening the World was its name and what an appropriate title that was as it (at least to me) revived the power metal style and proved that such albums were not a thing of the past.

In A Flame to the Ground Beneath, there’s definitely something missing. What’s missing is some of that energy that was evident in the band’s debut. Although it’s definitely there, there’s a little less energy, a little less creativity, a little less speed. The songs are also longer and not as straightforward. If you compare track length, the songs in A Flame to the Ground Beneath are considerably longer, which is to the albums disadvantage. A band like this is best when playing at full speed. Lost Horizon slowing down is almost like Dragonforce slowing down. It’s just… wrong.

So, instead of an album in which almost all the songs are standouts, you get an album that’s bit of a sleeper with few to no standouts. Perhaps it’s harsh to call A Flame to the Ground Beneath a disappointment, as the songs are nowhere near bad (as my score will indicate), but to me it’s just that – Lost Horizon can do better. The question now that Daniel Heiman has left the band is if they can ever release an album that’s at least as good as this one. Obviously they won’t ever touch on the greatness found in their debut. That’s a sad prospect for such a promising band, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it holds true.