Bedlam

Twilightning could have easily been the next Stratovarius or Sonata Arctica, if they keep working in the vein of the modern power metal of 2004's 'Plague-House Puppet Show'. The line-up change in 2006 stopped this process: they lost their keyboardist Mikko "Nasse" Naukkarinen, and this loss has taken the band in a completely new direction on 2007's 'Swinelords'. Between the two albums came the 'Bedlam' EP, which I guess function as a perfect bridge for the sound-change.

The first four songs on 'Bedlam' are true continuation of the entire 'Plague-House' album. The only exception here is track 5 named 'Train To Bedlam', which is a radio-country style hard rock with a little alternative touch on it. And this one song completely represent the atmosphere of the following LP 'Swinelords'.

The songwriting here is professional (just like in case of their other works), and their singer Heikki Pöyhiä is one of the finest power metal vocalists of Finland. Although 'Bedlam' can not be mentioned on the same page with their debut 'Delirium Veil' (as it was more 'serious' and epic power metal), the songwriting keeps the energy of the band alive, even on their last full-length.

The highlight of 'Bedlam' is undoubtedly the song 'Plague Overload', as it could have had a place on 'Plague-House' album, but that would have weakened the stamina of this EP. It's a dynamic modern euro-metal song with an unforgettable chorus and a powerful keyboard solo, in the vein of 'Winterheart's Guild'-era Sonata Arctica and later Edguy works. This is the last Twilightning song (and album) with Naukkarinen, and it's the best way to crown the first part of their discography with a full line-up.

I would give it 100%, but somehow this covert art is annoying me.

Twilightning is a band that I know very little about, aside of course what I learned from their Metal Archives page. The genre label says power metal/hard rock, and immediately I got a little bit concerned with the hard rock labeling slapped on them. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything particularly bad, but normally I don’t really want rock mixed in with my metal, as it often comes off as rather poppy and commercial. I suppose I should mention that I wasn’t trying to acquire this album in any way at all, but rather was luck of the draw from the “Various Labels Grab Bag” from Century Media. I guess luck in this context isn’t actually a very good word to use, because I could honestly do without this CD, but alas here I am stuck with it, albeit for very cheap (couple dollars).

Now, Bedlam at times actually has some decent moments, but they are still less common than the shitty parts in this album. It seems like Bedlam has a short good section then transitions right into a bad, shitty section. Overall, this EP is rather crap though, and completely unnecessary.

The keyboards on Bedlam often seem to have an electronic style to them, and don’t seem to really fit with the rest of what is going on. They just seem to be tossed in there to try to create some background atmosphere.

As for the riffs, they are quite light usually and do have a power metal feel more often than not, with some decent solos thrown in. However, as I said, the riffing is rather weak and light, devoid of any semblance of heaviness. Often sounding very poppy and commercial, and frankly completely unmemorable. I honestly can’t remember a single riff on this short EP, which is rather impressive in itself, recording an EP and not even having one memorable riff on the whole 21 minutes.

The vocals are possibly the only thing that keeps me listening to this short EP, as the vocalist is rather good. Power metal does often have quality vocalists, as that is generally a common aesthetic, however, sometimes the vocals on Bedlam are just ruined by rather silly, stupid effects/samples and style choices or whatever you want to call them, such as the cringe inducing laughing occurring towards the end of “Rolling Heads”, which just totally ruined the end of that song. The vocals on the closing track “Train to Bedlam” are rather good, but have very weak forgettable instrumentals to back it up. The instrumentals in “Train to Bedlam” are a combination of some acoustic guitar strumming and a simple drum beat with electronic effects on them.

The choruses (just a couple of them) are the only memorable aspect to this EP, and really only the vocalist on these choruses, everything else on this album is completely inoffensive, forgettable and bland, nothing necessary here at all. I really can’t recommend this to anyone in particular, not even for the target audience, which would be glam rock fans looking for a slight twist… which would be an occasional flowery power metal riff or solo, I guess? Regardless, there is better stuff out there to be found on both fronts… well at least on the power metal front.