Nocturnal Rites - New World Messiah

*=Staff's pick	New World Messiah* Against The World Avalon Awakening* Egyptica* Break Away End Of Days* The Flame Will Never Die One Nation Nightmare

Genre	Power Metal	Jonny Lindqvist	Vocals
Tracks	10	Fredrik Mannberg	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	Nils Norberg	Guitar
Label	Century Media	Nils Eriksson	Bass
Release	24 March 2004	Owe Lingvall	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Tad Morose, Kamelot, Helloween

With plenty of amazing tracks and albums and especially considering the two outputs since the arrival of vocalist Johnny Lindquist - Afterlife and Shadowland - in the back catalogue, Sweden's perhaps most underrated (but absolutely in the upper elite) metal act Nocturnal Rites are back with their latest studio delivery, New World Messiah. The band's progress in the metal galaxy has been a pure joy to follow so far and the change towards a darker and more metal sounding approach since Lindquist was introduced among the ranks only added more star quality to an already excellent unit. Sound-wise New World Messiah is a very natural continuation of the band's latest two releases but I feel that it's even darker than before and a stronger lean towards their compatriots in Tad Morose is quite detectable. However, this latest output retains 10 numbers of diverging character and let's briefly go through it starting with the most admirable and memorable crushers in the collection.

The title track New World Messiah is the first one out and immediately a die hard Nocturnal Rites fan can recognise their loved ones. This fast paced cut is exactly what you can expect as a Nocturnal Rites' kick off and contains as good as every band trademark with its great guitar intro, dynamic and rhythmic verse section and multi-layered refrain. It reminds a bit of Ring of Steel from Tales of Mystery and Imagination and also of the opening acts of their former two releases but with this new outing as the winner. A terrific opener! The next stand-out delivery is Avalon, that perhaps also is the track with the catchiest chorus on the release and the pace is somewhere between mid- and up-tempo. Avalon is then succeeded by Awakening, where the speed once again increases. The aggressive guitar-work is quite simple but it definitely satisfies and as does the catchy refrain and a strong Tad Morose feeling starts to creep in quite directly. Then the real highlight of the album makes its impact when the arabesque tones of the heavily Kamelot influenced epic Egyptica enters the scene. This ambitious and very heavy effort is also one of the most memorable Nocturnal Rites tracks ever and really stands out among the rest of the material. End of Days is a generally fast driven cut of the standard Nocturnal Rites quality with a little slower verse section and a faster memorable refrain. But towards the end songs like The Flame Will Never Die and One Nation have a little too much flavour of fillers in them and I most certainly lack brilliant numbers like for instance Vengeance and Birth of Chaos at this point of the album. Nightmare then restores some of the Nocturnal Rites glory but not quite to a truly satisfying altitude. In all honestly I also strongly feel that the standout tracks on this release aren't as good as those highlighting Afterlife and Shadowland. Only foremost the title track, Avalon and Egyptica are properly equipped to match those which should be quite a painting description of the shortages.

Regardless of that, the essence of the band still remains and the album follows quite nicely along the traditional Nocturnal Rites metal trajectory. Earlier criticism put aside, there's nothing's really seriously wrong with the album but there's a slightly too large portion of fillers in an amount that's not completely satisfying considering the very colourful history of the band. They perhaps spoiled us devoted fans a bit too much with the high standard compositions of their previous two outputs and lifted the expectations to levels they've not quite managed to live up to. Instead it feels a little more like Nocturnal Rites here are copying the glory of the past and rely too much on that instead of moving forward and really put all their energy to make a sequel to fully match those older achievements they are realistically still very capable of.

So on reflection then, New World Messiah doesn't quite reach the usual flair of Nocturnal Rites and doesn't push their two previous master albums off their perch. But since the band's still got a very high lower level, the album still qualifies as a good release and is also one that grows over time which a good album always should. At the end of the day though, a feel of slight disappointment still prevails and this time Nocturnal Rites have delivered a release that's a little more appealing to the true band followers than the general metal demographics. I've also learned that at the time of writing this Nocturnal Rites are in the studio recording a new album so I guess the near future will tell if New World Messiah was a temporary minor dip in performance or not.

See also review of: Grand Illusion , Shadowland , Afterlife

Production	Vocals	Compositions
9	8	7

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Mat