Kev Rowland The current version of Distant Past, the Swiss mystery-themed Heavy Rock/Metal band founded by A.Troiano (Emerald), now features former Emerald lead singer/guitarist Jvo Julmy on vocals, and this partnership is working very well indeed as the guys are really blasting out on this the fourth album under the Distant Past name. This is all about melodic Power Metal, with loads of balls and class shining through from the first note to the very last. It is passionate, it is powerful, and overall it is just great fun. True, there are times when the vocals aren’t quite true, and it would certainly help the overall feel if there was an anthem or two contained in the material, but overall this is an album that any metalhead will feel obliged to listen to all the way through, and then put it on again, only a little louder maybe.

The overall result is something that is knocking on the door of being something quite special, but probably not knocking quite hard enough. It is definitely much better than a lot of the metal I get to hear, but isn’t quite elevated enough to lift itself into the stratosphere. I would be intrigued to see these guys in concert and see what they are like live, and certainly look forward to the next album to see how they have moved from here, but the feeling that while they have the potential to be a quite stunning act, they aren’t quite there yet.