(Candlelight Records)
Moody Swedish melancholia-metallers playing the Queensryche card for all it’s worth, but the end result is better and deeper than that may sound. The hookage in album opener “House of Plague” is explosive after a Dream Theater fashion, whereas “Bleeding” amps up the 70s-obeisant keyboards to realize a more Deep Purple approach. The obligato come-hither-leather-chickies track “Nothing More” may as well have been sung in Latin for all the relevance it has in this market, but “Sleepy Town” is a massive departure in every sense, conjoining Linkin Park power-cruise with drawn-out Radiohead bizarro-subtleties. It’s back to serial mawkishness for “Liar On the Mount,” an opportunity for singer Stefan Zell to weep histrionically about 9/11, viewed here as conspiracy as opposed to incompetence-enabled tragedy.
