VISION DIVINE
Get set to journey through space and time with the excellent new release from Vision Divine. This is the band’s seventh album and the second since original vocalist Fabio Lione (Rhapsody of Fire) returned to the fold. A concept album set in the future, it deals with a man travelling through space with a like-minded group of people, escaping the confines of Planet Earth and the social and political problems caused by the human race. After a long journey a new home planet is found where life can start again. It quickly becomes evident that however perfect somewhere might be, greed and power are more important and the same problems rear their ugly head! Our traveller decides his only course of action is to set out on a lone journey, ‘Destination Set To Nowhere’.
This is a much more confident sounding album than their previous release, ‘9 Degrees West Of The Moon’, with more reliance on fantastically catchy, melodic choruses and better constructed songs. After a gentle introduction, spoken in Italian (but with the underlying guitars strangely reminding me of ‘Third Stage’ era Boston, probably due to the album cover, story and sound effects), we launch into the album proper and it displays everything I love about the Power/Progressive Metal genre. There are huge duelling guitars and keyboards mixed with an excellent rhythm section where the drumming displays just the correct amount of double bass and superb vocals, not relying on the high pitched squeals that some bands seem to think go hand in hand with this type of music (Fabio really is one of the best singers out there). It also has huge variety in tempo, is beautifully produced and sounds massive on my CD player.
Apart from the Boston influence, (which, in my weird brain, also crops up on the final superb title track), ‘The Ark’ and ‘Mermaids From Their Moons’ have Fabio sounding like an Italian Bruce Dickinson, with the latter of these two songs displaying a chorus straight out of the Kamelot songbook. In fact, the Kamelot sound is evident on several tracks, especially ‘The Sin Is You’ which also has an element of Gothminister. This does make me wonder how much Fabio ‘picked up’ during his stint singing for Kamelot and what they might have recorded together had he become the permanent vocalist! Obviously there are also occasional references to Rhapsody of Fire and Labyrinth whilst ‘Here We Die’ has an almost ‘thrash’ feel to it.
With all of the references I have made you might be thinking that the album perhaps sounds a little disjointed but that couldn’t be further from the truth; it all sounds... well like Vision Divine, who have delivered a top quality album that could well be included in my ‘end of year list’. Superb!
This is a much more confident sounding album than their previous release, ‘9 Degrees West Of The Moon’, with more reliance on fantastically catchy, melodic choruses and better constructed songs. After a gentle introduction, spoken in Italian (but with the underlying guitars strangely reminding me of ‘Third Stage’ era Boston, probably due to the album cover, story and sound effects), we launch into the album proper and it displays everything I love about the Power/Progressive Metal genre. There are huge duelling guitars and keyboards mixed with an excellent rhythm section where the drumming displays just the correct amount of double bass and superb vocals, not relying on the high pitched squeals that some bands seem to think go hand in hand with this type of music (Fabio really is one of the best singers out there). It also has huge variety in tempo, is beautifully produced and sounds massive on my CD player.
Apart from the Boston influence, (which, in my weird brain, also crops up on the final superb title track), ‘The Ark’ and ‘Mermaids From Their Moons’ have Fabio sounding like an Italian Bruce Dickinson, with the latter of these two songs displaying a chorus straight out of the Kamelot songbook. In fact, the Kamelot sound is evident on several tracks, especially ‘The Sin Is You’ which also has an element of Gothminister. This does make me wonder how much Fabio ‘picked up’ during his stint singing for Kamelot and what they might have recorded together had he become the permanent vocalist! Obviously there are also occasional references to Rhapsody of Fire and Labyrinth whilst ‘Here We Die’ has an almost ‘thrash’ feel to it.
With all of the references I have made you might be thinking that the album perhaps sounds a little disjointed but that couldn’t be further from the truth; it all sounds... well like Vision Divine, who have delivered a top quality album that could well be included in my ‘end of year list’. Superb!
LABEL:
FORMAT:
earMUSIC
Album
DESTINATION SET TO NOWHERE
Review by Rick Tilley
RUNNING TIME:
51:19
RELEASE DATE:
14th Sept 2012
TRACK LISTING
1) S' I Fosse Foco
2) The Dream Maker
3) Beyond the Sun and Far Away
4) The Ark
5) Mermaids from Their Moons
6) The Lighthouse
7) Message to Home
8) The House of the Angels
9) The Sin is You
10) Here We Die
11) Destination Set to Nowhere
2) The Dream Maker
3) Beyond the Sun and Far Away
4) The Ark
5) Mermaids from Their Moons
6) The Lighthouse
7) Message to Home
8) The House of the Angels
9) The Sin is You
10) Here We Die
11) Destination Set to Nowhere
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
Germany
"This is a much more confident sounding album than their previous release...with more reliance on fantastically catchy, melodic choruses and better constructed songs."
