Symphonic metal originated all the way back to the early 1990’s around the Scandinavian and Netherlands regions. With many bands incorporating elements of heavy metal, power metal, classical, and sometimes traditional rock music, the genre is often to heavily rely on choirs, orchestrations time to time and is a sub-genre of heavy metal to incorporate different musical tones and backgrounds. As someone who has a fair share with the genre, I got early promo access to check out the new Visions Of Atlantis release through Napalm Records titled Wanderers and let me say this, as someone who appreciates the genre this is a very well articulated, progressive and written releases I’ve heard in genre for 2019.
From what I’ve gathered, Visions Of Atlantis have been around for nearly 20 years and does not seem to get a lot of attention compared to most bands say like Nightwish, Within Temptation, Epica, Leaves’ Eyes, Delain and Xandria. This time around, Visions Of Atlantis have came back to release the newest chapter into the band’s catalog with Wanderers and is a continuation prior to 2018’s The Deep & The Dark which I have heard good things about the album. Lyrically, the band heavily relies on different subjects from myths, romantic stories, legends, tales and oceanic themed lyricism which you normally don’t hear that often in symphonic metal. This release marked the return of Clémentine Delauney who was their vocalist back in 2013 and this time around, her vocal performances, deliverance, emotion and captivation really set herself sky high to be a very well thoughtful songwriter.
Another reason this album easily drew my attention is the band also uses male backup singing which in my case suits the album perfectly in my personal opinion. Songs range from heavy, catchy, symphonic driven passages and even authentically made acoustic instrumentals where each member concentrated and worked extremely hard to combine such magical and fulfilling atmospheres. Artwork wise, if you picture yourself out in the open with your feet on warm sands, with the water flowing through the tides on a nice, breezy day you’re gonna picture yourself in a very luxurious, atmospheric, and soothing location all around to be in a calming state of mind. With tracks such as Release My Symphony, The Silent Scream, Bring The Storm, A Journey To Remember and the first single released on Wanderers being Heroes Of The Dawn, the listener will be taken on a journey into the breathtaking depths of the symphonic metal universe as well as the album’s portrayed showcasing the band that their musical search to find the truth and light that lies inside each one of us, overcoming the dangers and fears, daring to sail the seas that lead to self-realization, raising love as banner.
In my humblest opinion, this is simply put one of the best symphonic metal releases I’ve heard in a very longtime. Wanderers by Visions Of Atlantis will not only satisfy longtime fans from the band but those whom are relatively new to symphonic metal music will get a glimpse what these Austrian based outfitters can offer and I cannot recommend this enough for anyone wanting to get into the band.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
Review by Jake Butler
