EPICA

After the charming 'Karma' Kamelot offers us their first progressive work; Epica. Still present are the melodic heavy metal guitars and the power-metal bass and drums and the distinctive vocals of vocalist Khan. New is the storyline of the album (concept album alert!) and the experiments with choirs a symphony. The songwriting of Kamelot always had some positive catchy elements and the instrumental parts had already been developed in a good way on Karma, but now the whole affair got a vision. Kamelot had find a way of making music that gave their music a new direction and made the compositions great in their context. If you dislike power-metal you can still stop reading here, but if you an open minded progressive metal fan or a heavy symphonic fan you might still be very interested in this record.

The good thing about this concept album is the shift in atmosphere. As the album begins very optimistic with the up-tempo and bombastic Center of the universe it slowly develops into a more serious and pessimistic way. The main character of the story sells his soul to the devil and slowly becomes darker after loosing his girlfriend and unborn child. The final track of the album, III Ways to Epica is a real progressive track and a great ending of the album. All other tracks are a strong as well and the interludes are functional.

Conclusion. An up-tempo album with a strong emotional content and some progressive elements. This is definitely the best power metal ever made because of it's good story line and great songwriting. The sound of the band is at it's best and the instrumental parts have become great melodic parts that are important for the sound of the band. I can recommend this album to fans of symphonic hard rock and metal and concept album, but still I don't think fans of technical and very progressive metal will be very pleased with this album. This is the best Kamelot record and it deserves a four star rating for it.

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