EVERGREY — Glorious Collision (review)

EVERGREY — Glorious Collision album cover

Album · 2011 · Progressive Metal

4/5 · 2011-03-02
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Glorious Collision is the eight studio album from Sweden’s Evergrey. It was released in 2011 and features an almost entirely different line-up to the group’s previous effort, 2008’s Torn, with only lead singer/guitarist Tom Englund and keyboardist Rikard Zander remaining in the line-up. To provide a bit of background here, you only need to do a bit of searching on the Internet to discover that much of Evergrey’s more recent efforts, in particular Monday Morning Apocalypse (2006), haven’t been met with so much praise as their band’s early works such as Solitude Dominance Tragedy (1999) or In Search of Truth (2001). Personally I’m only in partial agreement with these views, I do think the band were on a downturn which reached its lowest with Monday Morning Apocalypse, however for me, Glorious Collision isn’t the album that’s going to bring them back up, because for me, they already got back on their feet in really great style with Torn, even if at the end of the day it was essentially typical Evergrey. I guess that when it comes down to it though I’m still looking for what many others likely are with Glorious Collision, and that would be the sound of an Evergrey that has been revitalised by this new line-up.

To cut a long story short I think that Evergrey has actually managed that. Right from the off Glorious Collisions indentifies itself as having that Evergrey sound, but it had an entire different feel to it than on previous efforts. While you could still call Evergrey’s writing style somewhat formulated (more so than you’d typically find in a band with prog tendencies), the guitar riffs of Englund and new guitarist Marcus Jidell sound a lot more intense and aggressive than ever before, and there are even a few moments in the album where things take on an Industrial flair. There are generally more parts to the album that strike me as unexpected on Glorious Collision as well. So for the most I would definitely consider Evergrey revitalised as a band, since the album manages to still feel like an Evergrey album and not a remake of glories gone by (that pun was entirely unintended, just for the record).

The album gives us its first highlight straight away with Leave It Behind Us. After a misleadingly quite intro that more intense guitar sound hits you. Englund’s vocals are, as always, really good, and the keyboards add a nice melodic flair to the song. The guitar solo sounds really frantic here. While not everything on the album comes as close to the greatness of this song, it is far from the album’s only gem. Restoring The Loss and To Fit The Mold are another two back to back highlights, and The Phantom Letters delivers one of the more progressive inclined pieces on the album topped off with some really emotive vocals from Englund. It Comes From Within is another really great song.

Other songs are still good. You, in particular, comes very close to being one of my highlights but it’s just lacking a certain spark to get it up there. I think it’s the chorus that’s at fault, because unlike many of the other chorus sections on Glorious Collision I don’t find this one so memorable. Other songs are just really solid material such as Wrong and Frozen.

There are no moments that can be considered a downturn on Glorious Collision. All in all it’s a very solid effort by Evergrey and as I stated earlier, it really does succeed in sounding very much like a revitalised band. Personally I don’t actually enjoy this album quite as much as I did Torn (which for me is a much overlooked and underappreciated album), but Glorious Collision definitely is a step in the right direction for Evergrey. It may not stand up to a masterwork such as their In Search of Truth album but for me does at least hint that there is much life in Evergrey yet. It’s another really great album from Englund and co. That I think will sit well with most established fans.

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)