A DECADE AND A HALF

EVERGREY is the Swedish songwriter and singer Tom Englund first and foremost, who has produced eight studio albums so far, assisted by a bunch of changing musicians. He just had renewed his crew to produce the current workout 'Glourious Collision' which is pretty good. Not even one year later this compilation has been released on Steamhammer/SPV consisting of 24 songs, some of them presented live - a representative cross section of all the albums since they started with 'The Dark Discovery' in 1998.

Melodic power metal is the name of the game here, I would say - there are a lot of bands which bear a stronger prog essence. At least five songs are extracted from 'The Inner Circle' (2004) - this could mean Eklund himself considers this one the band's masterpiece (so far). They exemplarily represent the bandwith reaching from fierceness to sentimentality. Tom's unique and expressive vocals have a large share of course, similar to Daniel Gildenlöw maybe who dominates the Pain Of Salvation albums. Carina Englund's voice could have been much more present though, when she appears it's always a pleasant contrast.

With the previously unreleased unplugged versions of Wrong and Frozen they have a special offer for the hardcore fans - the originals are both featured on the current album 'Glorious Collision'. Besides the excerpts taken from this effort some other exceptional songs are the powerful live version of Blackenend Dawn while showing some symphonic appeal, Solitude Within including violin support and the emotional A Touch Of Blessing which I can remember from the past.

'A Decade And A Half' comes like a retrospective view going back through EVERGREY's musical history. For the first time I had the chance to get an overview music-wise. So I dare to say that their current regular album sounds a bit different. Okay, there is a new line-up of course, that makes sense. Overall Glorious Collision sounds more polished towards AOR, less raw, appeals to me more. The question remains: why exactly are they offering something like a best-of-compilation at this point? Don't intend to speculate, but I'm quite sure Eklund won't quit, does not intend to close this chapter. Never mind, here we have a proper collection of melodic metal tunes, every album is taken into account. A serious offer for newcomer who intend to explore the band's floor.