Timeless Departure

As I lay in my bed, watching the half moon through the window I listened to Timeless Departure by Skyfire for the first time. It was the first I heard from them, so I didn't know quite what to expect. Hearing the first track, a very powerful, very beautiful melodic intro it struck me: This was going to be a very pleasant album. I continued to think so as the next tracks played. The music was melodic, with distorted guitars accompanied by furious growls. The vocalist could've been more powerful but I think it was the mix making him sound a little weak. He screamt on and on though, never seeming to get hoarse. And I loved the music. The keyboards were the foundation of the melodies, moving the music forward, towards the crescendo, yet adding atmosphere and an almost symphonic sound.

Guitars were executed flawlessly, heavy riffs between magnificent more melodic leads. They accompanied the keyboards in being the movement momentum as they put yet more depth and complexity to it all. The catchy riffs had been inserted almost everywhere, with a lot of changes to them, making each second of music interesting, offering something new. The drummer not only did what he was supposed to do, he also varied the pace, picked different drums to beat up. He kept his pace, and not only kept pace with the music, he synchronized the drums with the melody in a way worthy of imitation. Bass was in the background most of the time, yet masterly done.

So well, the musicians did play well together, they synchronized their parts, making it more than just a composition. They made it more than an assembly of the parts. Their playing efforts fit so well together that one sometimes wondered whether it was one person playing one instrument or what? Everything so tastefully combined, so masterly combined, yet better as a total, it made me wonder. It made me wonder if there were more bands like this, how I could get the rest of their albums and how many superb Swedish bands do I yet have to find? I still don't know the answer to the two last questions but I think some of Children of Bodom's material is similar to this. Songs built on the power metal structure, with harsh vocals are the elements reminding of CoB. Others, and there were more of them, made me think of Bal-Sagoth. They were mainly the vocals and the greatness of keyboards and guitars, but also flexibility in drumming and the ability to seamlessly combine the members' accomplishments into a bigger picture of sound. Skyfire is basically a more melodic version of Bal-Sagoth.

All in all, most fans of symphonic metal will love this disc. Anyone hoping that growls and harsh vocals automatically mean death metal probably won't survive the shock. Musically there isn't much to make complaints about, but more, much more to praise. As Timeless Departure was over pretty quickly I immediately gave it another spin. I was right about it being a complex album with much to discover. Now I also thought that this album perhaps was what the title suggested, a voyage into a musical dimension, music that will last forever, music that I'll like no matter how many times I listen to it. Pondering the similarities to Bal-Sagoth I decided to read through the lyrics right away, even though it was in the middle of the night. They wasn't the fantasy poetry of Byron's, but feelings caught in words, portraying the lost soul, expressing its hatred, its suffering, its endless quest, its search for a way back, its search to fill its life with a higher purpose, a meaning. Philosophical questions asked, its answers sought inside. It’s a revealing album. "Beyond the dimensions far away from my imagination / I clear my mind and try to understand its might / Let my lifeless body dwell in a land / unknown to many souls / Creators of this empty world / What did you really have in mind".

When I analyze it further I find however that while every song displays a song writing skill, not often paralleled, someone decided that their song concept was good enough to use on every song. As a result the a lot of the songs sound like each other, not very much - but still. It's not as Bal-Sagoth's 'A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria' where repetition have been embraced like a divine gift and variation have been more or less viewed like blasphemy...Sure, they wouldn't have suffered from some more variation, but since it took several listens in a row to start discerning it, it's no big deal. This is the only real thing I hold against them, besides a couple of production flaws, and even then I'm reluctant to do so Few records have touched me like Timeless Departure.