Kiske/Somerville - City Of Heroes

Published April 15 2015

*=Staff's pick	City Of Heroes* Walk On Water Rising Up Salvation Lights Out* Breaking Neptune* Ocean Of Tears Open Your Eyes Last Goodbye After The Night Is Over Run With A Dream Right Now

Genre	Melodic Metal	Michael Kiske	Vocals
Tracks	12	Amanda Somerville	Vocals
Running time	57 Min.	Magnus Karlsson	Guitar
Label	Frontiers Records	Mat Sinner	Bass
Release	April 17, 2015	Veronika Lukešová	Drums
Country	Germany/USA/Sweden/Czech R.	Magnus Karlsson	Keyboard
Producer	Mat Sinner
Similar artists	---

City Of Heroes is Kiske/Somerville's second installment after their eponymous 2010 effort, although actually this project could be seen more as a foursome plus additional drummer, since Magnus Karlsson and Mat Sinner have participated heavily on these releases as well. The two last-mentioned, who both normally also works regularly in the heavy/power metal outfit Primal Fear, writes massive amounts of music to different constellations, not necessarily together though, and a few basics of the melodies are starting to get rather recognizable to me.

Since they have recorded guitars/keyboards and bass respectively and since the bass player has produced this record as well, they contribute even more to the similarities of past efforts and this will probably escalate in the future. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they plagiarize themselves, but since I've heard so many of their achievements in the past, I'm starting to kind of relive the moment a little. The biggest similarities are undoubtedly present in the speedier songs and to some extent in the mid-tempo tracks and in these two sections the drumming rhythms are specifically resemblant in terms of its rolling appearance.

As a package, this album contains mostly melodic metal, but divided, it's really split up in 3 fairly equally large pieces; up-tempo and mid-tempo tracks and of course we have some heart breaking ballads when this duo of singers is present. To put the vocals of Michael Kiske and Amanda Somerville on top of the music seems like the easiest thing to do in the whole process. The vocal efforts of the two singers involved are unsurprisingly really harmonious and agreeable to listen to, even if I miss a little bit of that extra charisma and kick-ass attitude this time around.

Despite my somewhat negative words above, this is unquestionably a job well done and a pleasant experience at the end of the day. We get catchy songs with lots of arresting stuff and good melodies, and even though I maybe can't find those absolute killers that I want to praise to absurdity, the songs still have a capability to come out captivating. Consequently, I absolutely think that this platter, to a large extent, is a really solid effort which in the end deserves a rating of 7 chalices.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
7	4	7	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe