Meduza - Upon The World

*=Staff's pick	Design For Life* The Vision* Dream On Divina Comedia* Face Of A Demon Upon The World* Can You Tell Voices In Death

Genre	Progressive Neo-Metal	Apollo Papathanasia	Vocals
Tracks	9	Stefan Berg	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Massacre Records	Jonas Edström	Bass
Release	26 April 2004	Ola Grönlund	Drums
Country	Sweden	Joakim Floke	Keyboards
Similar artists	Symphony X, Yngwie Malmsteen, Masterplan

Meduza was from the beginning a soloproject that revolved around the guitarist Stefan berg, but as time past the project turned into a band and Upon The World marks the second release from this Swedish band. New to the line-up since their last album Now And Forever (2002) is Joakim Floke that previously handled the keys in Elsesphere and Apollo Papathanasia that is an excellent vocalist with a past in Time Requiem and Majestic. Apollo has a very powerful voice with a wide range and sounds similar to Roy Khan (Kamelot) in the closing track In Death, a soft and calm emotional track with only acoustic guitar and backing by keyboard. But the more apparent similarities in his voice is found in Russell Allen from Symphony X and Jörn Lande from Masterplan, and that is very suiting since the music has hugely in common with these bands as well as the guitar of Yngwie Malmsteen.

The influences can be heard right from the first note on the album as Design For Life starts, a fast track that more or less follow the standards on how Symphony X sounds, from everything with songstructure and melodies to the backing vocals in the refrain, and since Symphony X is a pretty good band this tends to be almost as great as the music from the Americans.
Divine Comedia is another of the Symphony X replicas that can be found on the album, fast drum driven tracks with swell melodies within the verses and not least with the refrains, at times the musically similarities lies so close that it is hard to overlook those facts and therefor give Meduza the credits that they actually deserves. When the pace is a bit slower and the songs goes in mid-tempo like with the track The Vision that is a great track with an extremely nice flow within the chorus the similarities with Masterplan can be added to their sound, and you can tell that the melodies are important for Meduza.

Added to the overall sound of the album is a guitar style similar to a dazzling guitarist that goes by the name Yngwie Malmsteen, in the mighty a bit slower track Face Of A Demon it is actually hard towards the end to remember that you're listening Meduza and not something from the eighties with Yngwie. It is quality work from Stefan Berg with the guitars, melodic riffing that supports the verses and then evolves into furious typical neo-classical Malmsteen solos, they might not be hyper-speeded in ordinary Malmsteen manors but equally good and enjoyable as Stefan has a more restrained approach to his guitar. The title track Upon The World is a perfect blend of the Symphony X and Malmsteen sounds, the drive and song structure similar to Symphony X with the passages and breaks whilst solos like Malmsteen. Also the interactions between Stefan Berg's guitar and Joakim Floke's keyboard where they are following leads and trading solos is perfectly performed but could have appeared more than what they do.

I would rank Meduza as a very good band that contains very good musicians, no question about that but they seriously need to develop a sound that is way more unique to themselves. As it is now its too much inspiration and not enough of own creation, Stefan is a without doubt a very skilled guitarist but then its like he tries too much to sound like Yngwie at times.
Keep the great melodies and variations in the music but move away a bit from the sound of Symphony X and it would be much better, even if it is quite good already.