NAPALM
Dark symphonic Swedes find themselves in need of contrast
The fourth studio fulllength from Swedish ‘dark symphonic’has the bones of a good album with decent songwriting, but it lacks light and shade; the efforts of singer Madeleine Liljestam to add colour to her brilliant vocals are muddied by the metallic onslaught. While she has a talent for taking melody and cadence to unexpected places, there are many more moments when you wish for a note to really soar the way it does at the end of or in the chorus of the album’s title track. Of course, histrionics are a crucial, thrilling element in symphonic metal, but just as there are no real low points on this record, there are few real highs either.
