666sharon666 Anubis Gate's fourth album The Detached, their only one so far to feature the exact same line-up as the previous one, is easily my favourite release by the band. They've had a strong run of incredible albums starting with their second A Perfect Forever which has still continued to date, their latest release being their sixth, Horizons, but none of those other releases can really touch this one. The Detached shows off every element I've come to expect from an Anubis Gate record.

They've always been a progressive metal band, but this is easily their most progressive sounding release. While still focussed on writing songs over extra long and complex stuff they've left more room for high level playing and instrumental sections. They've always used some power metal elements but here they are more prominent than ever before. It's the closest they've ever come to the prog/power metal branding the band usually gets labelled with actually being justified. There are some symphonic elements in the music which are quite effective too. The album is another science fiction concept piece like Andromeda Unchained, but the music flows even better than it did on that album. Several songs standout as being worth their own mentions, but I'm not going to. The album deserves to be listened to from start to finish without interruption. A masterpiece of modern, melodic progressive metal.

adg211288 The Detached is the fourth studio album by Denmark’s Anubis Gate, released in 2009. It is the second album with Jacob Hansen (Invocator, Beyond Twilight et all) as the group’s lead singer and overall continues a trend of (at least in my opinion), a chain of albums that get increasingly better. But The Detached isn’t an album that is merely just better than its predecessor, which was the absolutely amazing Andromeda Unchained, it completely and utterly blows it out of the water!

The Detached shares many aspects with Andromeda Unchained. It features the same line-up of musicians, and is a concept album with a science fiction storyline. The story of The Detached is actually based on a story by a Martin Rauff with lyrics written by bass player Henrik Fevre, and the presence of explanations of what’s happening in the story in the album’s booklet makes it easy to follow (other bands really need to take note of this for their concept albums) along with the songs, making this an easy album to appreciate the story these guys wanted to tell (or re-tell in this case) through music.

And the music itself is beyond epic. The tracks of the album flow from one to the next with ease and as a whole it gives me the sense of it being one big song and for me this is definitely the best way to take this album – in one hit with no compromises. Of course, I have my favourites from the album that may get a standalone play every now and then, but this is definitely at its very best in a single sitting.

We open with the brief introduction track On The Detached, which moves straight into Find a Way (Or Make One). This track showcases well what The Detached is all about, heavy riffs, prominent synthesisers, great vocals and really epic chorus sections. From here on the album is a total powerhouse, delivering epic track after epic track. Progressive Metal and indeed metal in general doesn’t get better than this.

The synthesisers play a really important role in making The Detached the really special album that it is. They create a really great atmosphere of the kind that makes the album somehow feel very spacey. I’ve only ever heard one other album that has really pulled off this kind of sound and that is Sonic Pulsar’s Playing the Universe. The music really fits the mood of the story, which is something I rarely find with concept albums.

Literally every song here can be considered a highlight, intro and outro pieces aside. My personal favourites are Find a Way (Or Make One) with its really amazing chorus that the band makes sound different every time around, Dodecahedron with its really haunting vocal passages, Options - Going Nowhere, which is easily THE epic of the album, especially the ending instrumentation, and A Lifetime to Share, which like Find a Way... has one of the most epic chorus sections of the album.

Anubis Gate are guilty of one thing here, and that’s the use of the auto track The End. As it doesn’t clock in at even half a minute its presence here is pretty well pointless and I see no reason why these last few seconds of the album aren’t just a part of A Lifetime to Share is beyond me. Guilty definitely, but due to the quality of the album, they’re also quickly forgiven.

Overall The Detached is an album that has my jaw on the floor. It gets better with every listen. So epic is it that when fully immersed in its perfection it seems to go by so fast like anything truly good does and at its conclusion it leaves me wanting to play it again straight away. This is no mere masterpiece, this is one of the finest albums ever made.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)

Time Signature Attached...

Genre: progressive (power) metal

On "The Detached", Anubis Gate pretty much continue where they left off with "Andromeda Unchained", although keyboards and electronics seem to have been given a slightly more prominent role on "The Detached".

There are no weak tracks on this CD as such, but my personal favorites are "Find a Way (Or Make One)", "Yiri", "Lost In Myself" (which starts out with a Queensrÿche-style great guitar harmony riff), the epics "Options - Going nowhere" and "Pyramids", with its many Middle Eastern elements and 90s Depeche Mode-ish electronics, and "Bloodoath" which has a number of Invocator-like qualities.

While the Queensrÿche and Fates Warning influences are still there, I think this album is beyond Queensrÿche-taken-to-the-next-level - I think this album is an original progressive metal treasure just waiting to be unearthed by the international progressive metal fan community (so, Mike Portnoy, consider including Anubis Gate on the next Prog Nation Tour, huh ;-) )

If you're into progressive metal, you're likely to love this album. And, while the pwoer metal elements are fewer than on previous releases, I think that power metal fans would also appreciate this album.

kluseba Anubis Gate are without a doubt one of the most interesting contemporary progressive power metal bands in the world and as far as I am concerned the best metal export from Denmark. It's a shame that those guys haven't made their breakthrough yet especially as they are able to not only maintain their high level but to improve it in regular time lapses. At least, they got a lot of favourable ratings from genre experts and their growing fan base.

This album is a really inspiring and diversified progressive metal album. It's filled with atmospheric parts, technically addicting progressive passages and a good amount of catchy melodies. It's easy to listen to this record if you listen to it as background music at one side but also easy to listen to if you concentrate and focus on the songs. This is a quality which many progressive bands don't have as they sound too complicated, ambitious and diversified for their own good. With an average length somewhere between six and seven minute sper song, Anubis Gate just found the right mixture in my ears. They sound fresh and addicting but still complex and creative. There are really many interesting changes in style to observe but the band doesn't lose itself in musical masturbations with endless guitar solos or keyboard intros like many other bands of the genre. Anubis Gate are creative and surprising like in the epic hymn "Yiri" or the amazing and exotic "Pyramids" but also easy and coherent to approach, catchy and straight like in the more commercial and addicting "Lost in myself" or the darker and hypnotizing "Out Of Time" that sounds like a Dream Theater classic and I mean this in a entirely positive way.

This would be a perfect album for someone who would like to discover the progressive metal genre and who wants to start with something original of a high quality but nothing to complicated. Anubis Gate delivers the best deal here. It is a very good progressive metal record that fits to any occasion and the best thing is that this record grows more and more with the time. The only small negative element that keeps this record away from being perfect and not just very good is the fact that there is maybe neither a good single choice nor a truly outstanding epic masterpiece on this album that could gather further attention as most of the tracks really are all equally great.