666sharon666 The third Anubis Gate album Andromeda Unchained is the point that for me they really hit their stride. Their last album A Perfect Forever was excellent but this is the point that the band fully morphed into the melodic progressive metal act they are today. Jacob Hansen takes over the lead vocal duties at this point with occasional lead from Henrik Fevre (who after one further album would become the lead singer himself), who also plays the bass for the first time on this album. It really feels like more of a band effort now.

This is a science-fiction concept album, the story of which is available to read on the band's website. That's a good thing as it's not the easiest of concept albums to follow the plot with. What's important though is that the music continues Anubis Gate's increasing strengths. Sacrificing some of the less polished riff based music of album's past for a clearer modern progressive metal sound with power metal elements, which become more distinct in the sound although not any more common, Andromeda Unchained was their best album up until that point. Jacob Hansen's voice might be an acquired taste though and he's quite different to Torben Askholm who sang on the first two albums. He fits the changes in style though whereas I'm not sure Torben's voice would have worked as well as it had done up until this point.

Warthur Cleaving closer to the prog side of the prog metal/power metal dividing line for this release, Anubis Gate unleash an exuberant collection of tracks that wastes not a second of its 70 minute running time. Indeed, it's one of those albums which are so exciting that even though it lasts over an hour, it doesn't feel like it runs for longer than 30 minutes, so compelling is the material. When even the tacked-on untitled bonus track gets your blood pumping you know that you've got something really energetic on your hands, and if muscular, straight-ahead prog metal that follows a playbook a bit darker than the Dream Theater one sounds good to you, Anubis Gate deliver. Kim Olesen's command of synthesiser textures slipping a rather fantastical note in between the sci-fi riffs delivered up by Jesper M. Jensen. I don't find it especially deeply satisfying, but it's fun for the occasional spin.

Sinkadotentree This is the only ANUBIS GATE album i own but it's pretty amazing. A concept album set in the future i like how the tracks either blend into one another or are connected by short atmospheric pieces.It gives the impression of one long story being told uninterupted. This Danish band has a new singer on board for this their third record and he's impressive. Nothing really new here, this is just a great sounding Prog-Metal album that can be quite heavy at times. Lots of spacey sections too like on that first track where we get an eerie atmosphere with samples.It's cool that the album ends much like it began. An excellent album for Prog-Metal fans especially for those who are into concept albums. A solid 4 stars for this one.

dtguitarfan Wow - futuristic, thunderously heavy, but a band that knows when to pull back and wait for crescendo. Anubis Gate has a knack for laying textures on top of each other to weave a complex pattern. Another trait I find descriptive of the band is how they use very interesting vocal harmonies - very full, rich chords. The band lost their vocalist after A Perfect Forever, and their producer, Jacob Hansen, stepped up to the plate, and what a powerful voice he has - very reminiscent of Geoff Tate from Queensryche. The name of the band, Anubis Gate, was taken from a Science Fiction novel, and I find the sound of the band characterizes this base in Sci Fi very well. The album, Andromeda Unchained, is a concept album with a very good, unusually well developed (for a concept album) Science Fiction plot. I am incredibly impressed with how much thought the band puts into their lyrics and the plot of their concepts. This is an excellent listen, and a very underrated band that belongs with the rankings of the more well know Progressive Metal bands like Fates Warning, Symphony X, and even Dream Theater.

adg211288 Andromeda Unchained is the third studio album from Danish metal band Anubis Gate and the first to feature the lead vocals of Jacob Hansen (Invocator, guitar in Beyond Twilight, as well as a notable metal producer), whose relationship with the band has always been a close one, with guest slots on both albums prior to Andromeda Unchained as well as sitting in the producer’s chair.

Andromeda Unchained is a concept album with a science fiction theme. I wish I could tell you a little bit about it, but the album is one of those concepts that is difficult to follow based on the lyrics alone, and the one link to the story that I could find on the band’s website no longer seems to work, but I guess ultimately the story doesn’t matter so much when the music itself is this good. So moving on...

Anubis Gate has always been something of a hybrid between progressive and power metal. On their previous releases Purification (2004) and A Perfect Forever (2005) the sound was mainly rooted in their power metal side but as of Andromeda Unchained the band’s progressive side has been coming out more in their sound, which is particularly obvious in the album’s first proper song, Snowbound. Heavy guitars are in abundance, but the use of acoustics is also down very well in the chorus, which in my opinion is a slightly atypical way to use acoustics in a metal song, since most of the time you may hear them in the verses, and a band would then heavy it up for the memorable chorus, but Anubis gate uses the acoustics in the chorus, and the effect works really well. Snowbound stands as a highlight for other reasons as well, mainly for the great instrumental work that appears later in the track. The high standard of quality never drops from herein either.

Hansen’s vocals sound a lot more pure in tone than many metal singers, and his deliver is very different than what I’ve heard him do in Invocator, which is a thrash metal band. It took me some time to get used to him to be honest, but once I was used to him he became one of my favourite metal singers and his tone fits the Anubis Gate sound really well and he is very much an improvement on the overall sound to the band’s former singer Torben Askholm, who was pretty good in his own right. Band bassist Henrik Fevre also performs some lead vocals on the album, in the song Take Me Home. Since I’m writing this review in 2011, several years since Andromeda Unchained was released, I just want to bring to attention to the fact that Henrik has actually now replaced Jacob as Anubis Gate’s lead vocalist, and that the song may be worth paying some extra attention to for any newcomers reading this review, just to give you an idea about how the band may sound on their still as yet forthcoming fifth studio album.

But back to the album at hand, Andromeda Unchained is a very impressive release. Each of the proper songs is powerful and has its own identity from the rest. Waking Hour is very much a metal song, being heavy throughout and the title track is just as intense, but features excellent use of synths to provide an almost spacey atmosphere to the music that is fitting with the sci-fi theme, while there are a couple of longer tracks in This White Storm Through My Mind and The End of Millenium Road. And of course as I already mentioned, Take Me Home features a lead vocal from Henrik Fevre, and also features a lot of good acoustic work. Every song is extremely good and there is no track where I wish things had been done differently. Highlights? It’s really impossible to pick in a release of this high quality except to say the whole thing, but I do find myself most partial to the likes of Snowbound, Waking Hour, Andromeda Unchained, Resurrection Time and Point of No Concern. That’s purely from a subjective point of view though; you could easily have different favourites.

The album does use several interlude tracks every now and then, as well as an intro and an outro piece. I have to confess, in many albums I would write such things off in a heartbeat, but here I would actually miss them if they were absent. They are atmospheric and ideal breather pieces between the actual songs, and they serve Andromeda Unchained extremely well. Other bands should take note; this is how to use such things in style and no I do not want to hear you cutting your songs apart to make more tracks or weird sound effects! Anubis Gate proves that such things can be done without doing something stupid. Much respect to them for it.

This is one of the best progressive metal albums I have ever heard, though I do think that the album that follows it, 2009’s The Detached is superior to the point that I consider it one of the best albums ever made from any genre. However although I’ll always say that The Detached is better, there is no excuse really for not adding Andromeda Unchained to your collection as well. Albums such as this convince me that Anubis Gate is one of the most unfairly unsung bands around at the moment, and I eagerly await the release of their next album. Absolutely essential listening.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 9.8/10)

Time Signature Genius unchained...

Genre: progressive metal

Holy space cow! This is a super album, and the addition of Jacob Hansen of Invocator fame as new vocalist was a great move. Hansen does not use vibrato techniques as often as Torben Askholm did, but has a very clean voice which suits the music well, and which lends itself well to multiple layering of vocals. As with the previous album, the compositions on this sci-fi themed concept album, are complex and varied combining various types of heavy riffing with guitar melodies and catchy vocal melodies, and I think that this album, like the predecessor, can be described as Queensrÿche taken to the next level of heaviness.

There are no weak points at all on this album, but especially "Snowbound" with its use of additional percussive instrumentation and heavy riffing, "Waking Hours" with its strange King Diamond quality, "Beyond Redemption" with its power metal chorus and Pantera-like riffs, "This White Storm Through My Mind" with its epicness and quirky riffs, and "The Final Overture" with its guitar harmonies and guitar melodies. The Ballad "Take Me Home" is actually also very good with its soft vocal melodies - without it being one of those horrible power ballads that drowned the metal of the late 80s and early 90s.

"Andromeda Unchained" is in many ways a very underrated progressive metal album which belongs up there with the classics by Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Mastodon and the other giants.