Time Signature The cheese has begun...

Genre: Euro power metal

While I was terribly disappointed with Golden Resurrection's shameless slob of über-cheesy Christian propagandist power metal in the form of "Man with a Mission", fellow countrymen and partners in cheese ReinXeed's "1912" proved to be a positive surprise to me.

Sure, we are dealing with archetypical Euro power metal with all the cliches in place and not a lot of innovation, but the musicianship is impeccable, and there is a lot of energy and uplifting spirit to the album.

It has all the things I like about Euro power metal, like the double bass drums, the epic and catchy choruses and the impressive guitar solos. But it also contains all the things I dislike about the genre, such as loads of sticky cheese and dominant keyboards - still, "1912" is less cheesy and more appealing to me than a lot of other Euro power metal I have heard.

The lyrical subject matter deals with the Titanic disaster, which is not really something that a lot of metal bands have touched before, so, in that sense, there there are actually aspects of innovation on the album after all. The vocals fall right into the "fairy"-singer stereotype, but Tommy Johansson really has some impressive pipes and, boy, can he hit some high notes!

A sort of moderate cheese-bomb, ReinXeed's "1912" is recommended to any fan of Euro power metal as it has all the attributes that define the genre.

J-Man Just a little over a year since the release of Majestic, and Swedish symphonic power metal act Reinxeed has returned with 1912. Still sporting their brand of symphonic power metal, the band has crafted another solid (albeit flawed) effort that should please their fans. 1912 is not as strong as Majestic, largely due to the surprisingly dull compositions and lack of variation. Of course, this album is also overflowing with "power metal cheese" - which is not a good thing when it's coming from me. This isn't at all a worthless album, though, seeing that the musicianship is remarkable and the release is highly professional. Unfortunately, those two assets alone cannot make up for the huge detriments created by the overall lack of inspiration throughout the album. 1912 isn't a bad album by any stretch, but I also wouldn't call it a great one.

Reinxeed plays a style of bombastic symphonic power metal with influences from acts like Rhapsody (of Fire), Golden Resurrection, and Narnia. 1912 is heavily layered with symphonic keyboards, fast double-bass rhythms, and lightning-fast neo-classical guitar solos. As such, this isn't the most original album around, but Reinxeed delivers the style professionally. The super-polished production does sound very professional (even though I don't enjoy it) and the musicianship is unquestionably top-notch, but 1912 comes across as far too "cheesy" for me to enjoy. I like quite a bit of power metal, but this album just pushes the level of pompousness that I can handle. 1912 really is the type of power metal album that all of the genre's critics love to pick on - the catchy choruses, intrusive and cheap-sounding keyboards, and "happy" atmosphere will undoubtedly test some people's patience. This album is very much like Majestic in that regard; the arrangements are too bombastic and would greatly benefit from being stripped down a bit. However, 1912 does lack the quality compositions that made Majestic more enjoyable for me. Maybe it's the lack of progression between the two albums, but 1912 does feel much more dull and uninspired than its predecessor. Many of the songs sound almost identical, featuring very similar song structures, arrangements, and in some cases, chord progressions. Reinxeed surely has potential, but it isn't fully lived up to on 1912.

1912 is a decent album overall, but I find it to be a difficult recommendation to most metal fans. Unless you value bombastic arrangements overall quality compositions, you can definitely find better releases out there. Majestic is indeed a better entrance into the music of Reinxeed, and this one is (for the most part) passable. This band has yet to really impress me, but with more variation and less bombast I could see these guys creating a really great power metal album. For now, 1912 is worth 2.5 stars.

The Block Well it’s a year after the release of “Majestic” and it seems that Reinxeed is still on the same path. Granted they have removed some of the cheese from their previous effort and added some more direction to their music, but there’s still enough there that makes you wonder if they learned from their last release. I enjoy some genre clichés in my music, but the amount that Reinxeed puts in unnerves me a bit. This album doesn’t have an overwhelming amount but it’s way more than enough. A good thing about this album is that, as I said before, it has direction to it. “1912” is, as you might’ve guessed, about the tragic tale of the Titanic, its maiden voyage, and its end. While it’s an odd topic that I’ve never heard before in music, let alone metal, it provides for a good story line. But, you probably don’t care for a history lesson so onto the music.

The title track starts right off with a clichéd beginning, with epic synth lines and drums but it eventually settles downs to a lower pace rhythm that is pretty enjoyable. But eventually, like with most of their stuff, it resorts back to pretty cheesy power metal. Tommy Johansson’s vocals on this song and throughout the album are pretty good, but as was with the last album, they are pretty silly when you listen to them. But all in all they sound good and I enjoyed listening to them, though by the end of the album I was just a little sick of them. One thing about the story line that’s weird is that it seems to jump around a bit. First it starts with boarding the boat then there’s a song about the crash and then it goes back and forth between getting saved and the boat crashing again. The cool part about the concept is that at the end the songs seem to take you through different people’s reactions, and what happened to different people.

The guitars on this album are pretty good, also, but as with most cheesy power metal and symphonic metal releases they go on long cheesy guitar riffs that are repeated over and over again. While I do enjoy some of these riffs for their apparent simplicity, if Reinxeed would just cut down a little on the technicality on some songs and slow things down they would have much more diversity on their albums. The production one this album is very crisp and clean. It layers the vocals and guitars almost perfectly, making for a nice feel.

As I said with their last release, if you like very cheesy power/symphonic metal go ahead and pick this up. But, otherwise beware of this album. There are some very good moments on this album, but if you don’t want to sit through a bunch of clichés to get there this album definitely isn’t for you. Reinxeed once again gets 3 stars.