Out of cold, Northern Europe comes Everfrost with their anime/manga-inspired version of symphonic power metal on their second album Winterider, a release that has an accompanying manga comic.

Everfrost from Lapland, Finland have been active as a band since 2015, releasing a full length album, Blue Eyed Emotion, an ep and a live album prior to Winterider.  Blue Eyed Emotion introduced the characters who play out the fantasy story in Winterider, so for those really interested, it may make sense to check out the first album as this one is a concept album as well.

The opening track, “Winterider”, starts out innocently enough, just like many other symphonic power metal albums from Europe, so no real surprises.  Strong keyboard presence in the beginning and an overly clean production seems to have taken a bit of the teeth out of the instruments.  Vocals a seem almost eerily perfectly smooth as are the gang chorus sections.  I can’t seem to shake the feeling that this song wasn’t really performed by a live band.  The production is so clean that the performances seem to have had all emotion removed.  Guitar solos alternate with keyboard solos amidst some great drumming  and there are a lot of sound layers going on here that end up taking away from the performance for me.

Interestingly, keyboardist Benji Connelly is credited with writing the music and lyrics, the arrangements, and the production and that may explain t Continue reading »