lukretion After two albums firmly rooted in the melodic neoclassical metal / hard rock camp, on their third full-length Narnia tried to mix things up a little, injecting a healthy dose of 1980s metal into their sound. As a consequence, Desert Land sounds heavier than the band’s previous two efforts, which were instead highly melodic hard rock affairs. This may or may not have been a reaction to the criticism the band received for the mellowness and lack of grit of their previous two records, or it could have been an attempt to ride the success of European power metal, a genre that enjoyed a significant commercial success at the turn of the century. Either way, it is a welcome turn of events for the band’s sound, which injects some freshness into a subgenre (that of neoclassical metal) that can easily grow stale and formulaic.

In this sense, the album’s most striking aspect, which is also its main strength, is the smooth variation of the songs in its tracklist. Fast, neoclassical tracks that evoke the spirit of Yngwie Malmsteen are alternated with beefier affairs, where the baroque guitar runs and harpsichord accompaniment are substituted with slow, twisty riffs that nod in doomy directions, halfway between Rainbow and Black Sabbath. Meanwhile, “Trapped in This Age” timidly ventures outside the rigid stylistic requirements of the power metal subgenre, with hints of progressive metal in the slightly more complex texture and multi-part structure. “Revolution of Mother Earth” is instead a more standard, piano-driven ballad, which nevertheless pleasantly surprises with its powerful melodies.

For the rest, Desert Land shows the same strengths and weaknesses as Narnia’s previous two albums. Carl Johan Grimmark is a great guitarist, whose playing is not a mere display of technical ability, but is rooted in a stronger idea of melody. Aside from the guitar, the spotlight also shines on Christian Liljegren’s beautiful vocals. He has a trained tenor voice with a rich vibrato that fits perfectly the songs’ majestic and poignant mood. His delivery on Desert Land is perhaps slightly grittier compared to Narnia’s previous records, reflecting the generally more aggressive and metallic style of the new album. The rest of the band is equally proficient, albeit the other instruments are mostly used in an accompanying role, letting Grimmark’s guitar take centre stage, as per the genre’s stylistic requirements. Especially Martin Claesson’s keyboards play a far less prominent role in the arrangements than they had in Narnia’s previous album, Long Live the King. This is a pity since his keyboard parts had been one of the highlights of that record. The emphasis on the guitar makes the arrangements a bit skimpy and predictable, an impression that is reinforced by the album’s limited dynamic range and the fairly formulaic songwriting, trapped in an endless cycle of verse, prechorus and chorus in nearly all songs. However, part of these shortcomings come with the genre and are not specific to Narnia.

Overall, Desert Land is a good album that consolidates Narnia’s position as one of the most solid and proficient acts in the neoclassical metal genre. On this album the Swedes have tried to inject some variation in their usual neoclassical fare, adding more heaviness and aggression to their sound. The experiment is by and large successful, although it does not completely alter the fairly predictable and to a certain degree derivative essence of the band’s musical ideas.

lukretion After receiving encouraging feedback for their debut LP Awakening, guitarist CJ Grimmark and vocalist Christian Liljegren went back to the studio to record Narnia’s sophomore album. This time, however, the duo enlisted a fully-fledged line-up to realize their artistic vision, instead of relying on Grimmark to play all instruments by himself. Joining Grimmark and Liljegren on this album are bassist Jakob Persson, drummer Andreas Johansson and keyboard player Martin Claesson. The new line-up makes a huge difference in shaping Narnia’s music, as it confers a more powerful and well-rounded sound to the band that was missing on the debut album.

Long Live the King is otherwise cut from the same cloth as Awakening, finding inspiration in the neoclassical metal music of Rainbow and Malmsteen’s Rising Force and mixing influences from hard rock, power metal, and baroque music. The album is dominated by majestic mid-tempo songs that exalt Grimmark’s skilled but melodic playing and Liljegren’s trained tenor voice, one of the cleanest and most controlled one can find in this branch of metal. The guitar takes inevitably centre-stage as in much of neoclassical metal music, with lots of excellent hard rock riffs, melodic leads and solos. I particularly appreciate Grimmark’s playing here, as he never loses sight of melody when he constructs his solos and leads, in contrast to other neoclassical guitar heroes (including Malmsteen himself) who often seem to privilege fast and technical playing over anything else. The keyboards also feature prominently on this album to provide texture to the song with a wide range of sounds from harpsichord to organ to sampled choirs. This is a nice difference compared to the debut album, which highlights the importance of having included Martin Claesson in the line-up. The same goes for the inclusion of Persson and Johansson: having a real, flesh-and-blood rhythmic session instead of programmed drums makes a huge difference in the overall album’s sound.

The other main area of improvement compared to the debut record lies in the quality of the melodies. Awakening was a bit hit-and-miss when it came to providing memorable hooks that could transform a good song into a classic. In contrast, Long Live the King contains 3 or 4 tracks (“Living Water”, “Shelter Through the Pain”, the title-track) that are proper masterpieces, and the fact that such songs have been regularly included in the band’s live performances decades after their initial release is testament to that. More generally, it is hard to find weak songs in this album. Each one provides interesting moments, be it a catchy vocal hook, an exciting solo, or just a good riff. In addition to the tracks mentioned earlier, I am particularly fond of “Dangerous Game”, the only fast piece on the album that sounds like a cross between Malmsteen and Royal Hunt, and the closing track “Star Over Bethlehem”, a dark mammothian affair that finds inspiration in the doomy hard rock of Black Sabbath and Dio and provides a perfect conclusion to this epic but overall mellow and melancholic album.

If I were to nit-pick, I’d have to say that the album lacks a bit of variation across its 10 tracks. They all have the same structure (verse/prechorus/chorus/solo), explore similar moods and atmospheres (with the exception perhaps of the more upbeat “Dangerous Game”), and even rely on melodies that are constructed and delivered in a way that is not terribly different from song to song. While on the one hand this ensures that Long Live the King feels very cohesive as an album (something that Awakening was lacking), there is an inherent risk of having the listener lose interest and excitement as the clock ticks on. Fortunately, this risk is by and large avoided thanks to the excellent quality of the songwriting that ensures that things do remain interesting and exciting throughout, despite the nagging sense of sameness one may experience as the album progresses.

Overall, Long Live the King is probably the strongest album released by Narnia throughout their career. It is fuelled by excellent songs with memorable melodies, strong performances and a good production sound. It is the record I reach for whenever I feel in the mood for some Narnia and sits up there with the best albums in the neoclassical metal genre.

lukretion Amidst the European power metal galore of the mid-1990s, Sweden stood out as a fertile land for the neoclassical brand of the genre, inspired by the work of guitar wizard Yngwie Malmsteen with his pyrotechnical mixture of Rainbow-infused hard rock, speed metal and baroque music. Founded in 1996, Narnia are one of the leading purveyors of the Swedish neoclassical metal scene that exploded in those years. The band coalesced around the artistic vision of guitarist CJ Grimmark and vocalist Christian Liljegren. Both musicians had already their own hard rock / metal bands at the time, but were interested in exploring a more bombastic and melodic form of hard rock and heavy metal and started Narnia as a vehicle to fulfil this ambition.

On their debut album Awakening, Liljegren and Grimmark worked as a duo, handling all instruments and vocals themselves, bar a few cameos from a couple of guest musicians. The material for the new album consisted in large part of re-arranged songs from the two musicians’ previous bands (Borderline, Modest Attraction and Sentinel), plus a couple of newly-penned songs. This is why a lot of the tracks on Awakening have a hard rock feel to them, closer to Rainbow and early Malmsteen’s Rising Force than Stratovarius and other power metal acts. The music alternates between epic mid-tempos and faster pieces, and is centred on Grimmark’s technical but melodic guitarwork that provides most of the songs’ texture. Keyboards are used too, but more sparingly. Rhythmically, there is nothing particularly adventurous, as the drums mostly keep a straight tempo with a few fills and flourishes. Unfortunately, it is quite obvious that the drum parts have been programmed as they sound very unnatural and plasticky (especially the cymbals). This is a major let-down because the artificial rhythmic backdrop gives the music a karaoke-like feel that takes away a lot of its power and allure.

This is unfortunate because Liljegren’s and Grimmark’s performances are otherwise excellent. The singer has a trained tenor voice featuring a strong vibrato. He mostly stays in his mid-range and is very controlled in his delivery, which some may find unappealing since it does not conform to the genre’s convention of rough-edged, high-register vocals. I actually find Liljegren’s voice one of the main strengths of the band, since it sets them apart from many other similar acts in the genre and, moreover, it is very pleasant and melodic. Grimmark’s guitar playing is also first-class. He is clearly inspired by guitarists of the calibre of Ritchie Blackmore and especially Malmsteen, to the point of adopting a similar sound too (listen to the acoustic guitar on “Heavenly Love”). And in fact legend narrates that when Grimmark and Malmsteen met, upon hearing Narnia’s early material, the guitar maestro commented: “That sounded quite a bit like me”.

Awakening’s tracklist is pretty solid, with almost no fillers or subpar songs (“Touch from You” being perhaps the weakest of the lot here). However, the album also lacks particularly strong episodes that remain seared in one’s ears and mind. The melodies are good, but not super catchy. Moreover, it is hard not to perceive a certain artificiality and formulaicity in the songwriting and delivery, which is partly due to the programmed drums as mentioned earlier, and partly to the rather cold production sound. Another downside is that the album lacks somewhat cohesion, alternating between downcast mid-tempos, love ballads, and gutsy hard rock numbers, in a tourbillion of styles that are not meshed well together. This probably reflects the album’s genesis as a collection of other bands’ re-arranged songs and makes for a slightly disjoint listening experience overall.

Despite these limitations, Awakening is a good debut album from a clearly talented and promising band. Liljegren and Grimmark will continue with much stronger albums, but Awakening is a decent enough starting point to deserve a recommendation not just for Narnia’s fans and collectors, but for fans of neoclassical metal and hard rock, more generally.