GHOST OPERA

I can't really comment on Kamelot's discography, on their heyday or higher quality of releases before this one. All I can say is that Ghost Opera, as far as a singular progressive metal release goes, is not very inspiring.

The band has a unique sound that I've been led to believe really works better on other releases. Here we have a slightly metal, slightly melodic meld of power metal and pop rock. If anything, to abuse a terribly popular cliche way of thinking these days, Kamelot is almost post-power metal. The music is mostly pretty slow paced, pretty static, and pretty interesting. Don't get me wrong--this is a fine album. But as a progressive metal release, it really is missing a lot of things. Vocally, the band is particularly strong. Khan has a unique, operatic voice that works well with the sound and concept here. The only problem is that on Ghost Opera he plays around mostly with just his standard full voice, in the same patterns and with similar melodies. We don't get to hear this guy with a well-developed voice ever unleash here. The rest of the band, however, ranges from average to lackluster. The guitars play their power chords, the bass mimics the guitars, the drums play stock beats with a few moments of fast double bass pedals, and the keyboards are downright invisible most of the time. Some strings are thrown throughout to middling effect.

The problem with the music on the whole, though, is that most of it really ends up sounding exactly the same. Solitaire opens the album beautifully with a violin, segueing quite nicely into the semi-rocker Rule the World. If this is your first experience with Kamelot, you'll probably be pretty impressed, as I was. The album even begins to improve with the energetic title track, which is a slight sonic variation on the previous track. This trend continues in terms of similarity, but the energy level never again reaches the height of the title track. The Human Stain starts out promising, but ends up doing the same thing as the rest of the tracks. There are a few ballad sorts of tunes here, but the melodies are similar and similarly constructed to everything else. Love You to Death, Blucher, and maybe another track feature some nice female vocals, but they aren't enough to give this album the color and depth that it needs to rate well on this site. By the end, you've just experienced barely any variation, albeit from a good song format. It makes for a fun listen once in a while, but it's nothing particularly intriguing.

Based on everything I understand, this works well for fans of the band, but it is not a great place to dive into their music. Two stars because it would rank average on an overall music site, but on a prog one, Ghost Opera has very little to offer at all.