Austrian band Visions Of Atlantis' albums were amongst the first I started buying and listening to when I was getting into power metal, and now I can sit down and have a proper listen and decide what I really think of them.
With strong, pleasant symphonic elements, this debut is quite reasonable, with the unusual (though not unique) aspect of having a lead male (Christian Stan) and female (Nicole Bogner) singer trading vocals - and that is 'normal' vocals, not death growls from Stan, and operatic ones from Bogner. The problem is neither of them are terribly good. It's not that they can't make the notes, but that their voices are both quite weak, and Bogner's style certainly can't compare with some of her contemporaries.
But neither are they bad enough to ruin the record, and I did enjoy such songs as "Lords Of The Sea", "Eclipse" (love the keyboards on that one especially) and "Chasing The Light".
There's certainly room for improvement here, but this is a pretty good commencement to Visions Of Atlantis' career.
***
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