Stranger Vision - Wasteland.

STRANGER VISION - WASTELAND

(Pride & Joy Music)

By Paul Davies

Second album syndrome affects every group and artist who hasn’t broken up or given up after a debut release. Wasteland is Stranger Vision’s second or, as our American friends say, sophomore album and it builds on, not undermines, this Italian Progressive Power Metal band’s style. Based upon Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poem, Wasteland is a concept album that Eliot could never have imagined being released to celebrate his poem in music. The atmospherics of At The Gates plays the cliche of beginning concept albums nicely setting up the title track that hurtles along like a bunch of bats escaping from hell with Riccardo Toni’s tapping guitar solos, airy keyboards and stuttering riffs, melodic vocals courtesy of Ivan Adami, banging bass by Daniele Moroni and cannon fire drumming from Alessio Monacelli. The smooth prog metal tones to Handful Of Dust is a rock radio belter that showcases a band who knows how to arrange a song where guitar and piano combine to maximum effect. There’s a penetrating melodic power to Stranger Visions' musical vision where progressive and metal stylings mostly work well together, when not occasionally being bogged down, across these eleven songs. Whilst not breaking new ground, they separate themselves from the mass of bands labelled in this movement by having a melodic base and an impressive command of instrumentation and delivery. The epic nature of Anthem For Doomed Youth and the ballad-like shades to Under Your Spell is the kind of mid-album tracks that you want to encounter, and it raises their sonic profile.

There are also enough head-banging elements, to contrast with some of the more sophisticated parts, as Fire explodes with a deep and heavy riff to sate the desires of those who prefer metal to progressive. Still, when both are alloyed to each other on recordings such as this they become greater than the sum of their parts. However, not everything works as well as it should with the vocals, at times, not being distinctive enough, a few unmemorable musical passages and a lack of melody here and there. Nevertheless, Stranger Visions mostly rise to the tough challenge they have set themselves to write a concept album to a famous poem. In doing so, they have acquitted themselves well on this follow-up to their debut release. This band certainly possess great ambitions.