Time Signature The cold embrace of Blacklands' debut...

Genre: progressive metal/rock

Drawing on both progressive metal and progressive rock Blacklands' "A New Dawn" belong to same category of alsums as Touchstone's "Wintercoast" and Adramelch's "Lights from Oblivion", although Blacklands' sound is considerably more epic than with the two other bands.

As with Touchstone, Blacklands have a primary female vocalist in the form of Noja Nardelli and a supporting male vocalist in the form of Michael Stockschläger, and otherwise features the classic guitars-keyboards-bass-drums instrumentation from progressive metal.

The album opens up strongly with the melancholic and somewhat gothic sound melodic track 'Cold Embrace', which is followed by the most outstanding track of the album, for my money - namely, the brilliant 'Dance of the Witches' which features some nice medieval, folksy passages. The other outstanding track of the album follows in the form of the engaging and hard rocking title track 'A New Dawn'. After these three brilliant tracks, the listener is warmed up and ready for more good stuff.

Sadly - at least as I experience the album - the energy level drops radically after 'A New Dawn'. The fourth track 'Ocean of Tears' is a heavy ballad - and a quite good one actually, but the rest of the album pretty much continues in the same vein. That is, heavy to mid-tempo melodic songs with melancholic elements and, to be frank, not enough variation to keep me interested.

There is nothing wrong with the musicianship, but I must admit that I do not find the vocal performances captivating at all. Noja Nardelli's singing is very silken and very restrained - in many cases not fitting the heavier textures of the music, and - well - the male vocal element is not really necessary. Had the vocals consisted of more powerful female vocals and no male vocals, I think that the album would probably have more of an edge to it.

So, Blacklands' debut - apart from the first three or four tracks - does not really appeal to me. I would still say that it is worth buying because of the first handful of tracks. And, of course, if you like heavy but meladic and melancholic progressive metal with a hint of gothicism, then you are certainly encouraged to check out the album yourself.