ANOTHER WORLD

Southern Empire's third album has finally been released after years of it being pushed back when it was supposedly just a few months from release. As most know, Danny Lopresto departed the band with Shaun Holton replacing him on lead vocals. And guitarist Cam Blokland takes a step up and plays a more up front role in the songwriting and vocals.

The album kicks off with the quite proggy Reaching Out. It's a fine track, reminding me of the sound of 90s prog band Cairo at points, and has grown on me more than all the others. The epic Face the Dawn is what I feel is the best track on the album. One of the main vocal riffs is borrowed from Coldplay's Viva la Vida, but it is overall fantastic piece of music, and probably one of my top tracks of the year. Hold On to Me is Cam Blokland's sentimental ballad. The lyrics in the chorus are saccharin and unoriginal enough to hurt the song. But the tune and the music are pretty fantastic. Some better effort on the lyrics on it would have made it phenomenal. When You Return is an all right song that is tarnished by awful narration used explain what the Fermi Paradox is. There is no need to dumb down a song with a middle school explanation of a familiar topic (nor even an unfamiliar one). Moving Through Tomorrow starts off terribly with the worst lyrics on the album and a hair band-like tune. It goes through cliche after cliche, and I would be embarrassed to play it in front of anyone. The middle of the song is actually quite good and melodic, even if the music is lifted almost straight from Steven Wilson's The Pin Drop. White Shadows is the big epic, and they pull it off. It's not near the level as tracks from their previous album like Crossroads or Cries for the Lonely, but it's really superb all the way through. The closer Butterfly is pretty good.

Overall, it's a good, flawed album, but a big step back in the band's progress. Holton has good vocal ability, but it has a whiny, mid-2000s aspect to it that takes away from the melodic sound of the band. The album is mostly hurt by the lazy lyrics though. Tightening that up alone would be a big improvement for the future.