EMPIRES NEVER LAST

"Empires Never Last", Galahad's eighth album, shows a grim and decidedly hardened facet of the British band, from a committed thematic that, although not designed as a conceptual work, is recurrent in the discouraging look of reality, propitiating an interesting scenario dominated by dense and muscular structures that move away from the kind neo- progressive waters of the band to experiment through the most agitated seas of Progressive Metal.

Beyond the solid sonic foundation built by Spencer Luckman's percussive proficiency and Lee Abraham's bass playing, the album's personality flows through Dean Baker's intriguing keyboards and synthesizers creating expressive atmospheric layers, over which Roy Keyworth's harsh guitar riffs (influenced by 'Threshold' guitarist Karl Groom, who served as co-producer) unfold with astonishing ease, and whose peaks of expressiveness are found in the intense half- time of the demanding "Termination", in the dual worldview of the martial and portentous "I Could be God" dramatised by Stuart Nicholson's actorly vocals, in the thick framework of the manipulative "Sidewinder", and in the eponymous "Empires Never Last" which intersperses moments of tense calm with aggressive instrumentation and the crushing message that all empires, sooner or later, fall.

And both the a cappella choral singing of the female guest trio led by Christina Booth (Magenta) in the opening "De-Fi- Ance (part 1)", and the delicate acoustic introduction in the instrumental "Memories From An African Twin", give a peaceful nuance to the album, resuming in its final stretch the sorrowful mode with the stark selfishness of "This Life Could Be My Last", an intense and grandiloquent ballad that is rounded off with a wonderful guitar solo by Keyworth.

More than fifteen years after starting their musical adventure, Galahad finally achieves general recognition with 'Empires Never Last', surely the best work of their discography and one of the best albums of the genre in 2007.

Excellent.

4/4.5 stars