Meduza - Now And Forever

*=Staff's pick	Shed no Tears* I Will Rise Now and Forever* Sleep Touch the Sky* Hounds of Hell Twilight of My Mind Holy Ground Curse of Pharaoh Land of Forgotten Dreams* Burn in Hell

Genre	Melodic Power Metal	Apollo Papathanasio	Vocals
Tracks	11	Stephan Berg	Guitar
Runningtime	52 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Massacre Records	Jonas Edström	Bass
Release	18 Sep. 2002	Ola Grönlund	Drums
Country	Sweden	Jan Larsson	Keyboards
Similar artists	Malmsteen, Sonata Arctica, some Rainbow

Swedish guitarvirtuoso Stefan Berg has together with the remnants of his previous band Autumn Lords formed the band Meduza, who's now giving us their debut, Now and Forever. Musically this is power metal balancing somewhere between happy and symphonic with the major focus on the guitars in a majorly fast track-album.

When it comes to the guitars it's pretty obvious and stated that Yngwie Malmsteen has made a huge impact and the use of neo-classical elements only adds wood to that fire. Berg has also confirmed that Richie Blackmore is a source of inspiration mostly when it comes to song-writing and resembling touches of Rainbow's Bent out of Shape album are not that difficult to detect.

From a band biography I caught the following quote: "The main focus of Meduza is definitely the one towards the melody and the song itself". But this is absolutely open for some debating because it feels a little like all the fast tracks are cast in the same mould. The same type of guitarsound and tempo orchestred together with neo-classical touches and an overall feeling of songs being to much alike get a little too single-minded in the long run.
It's also very obvious that it's Stefan Berg who's the star of the band here no matter what the biography says. His guitar totally dominates the sound and it makes me wonder if this should have been released as a solo-album instead, but that's just a thought.

However, even if you like your metal in the pretty much standard-version and want the major focus to be in an orgy of swirling guitar-tones a lá Malmsteen, spiced up with neo-classic touches in the keyboard-arrengements, Meduza is still of that kind that needs to reach your ears before you reach for your wallet.

I like this release mostly due to Berg’s great musical skills, the good performance by the other instrument handlers and the good vocals and not so much for the tracks themselves. Altogether, Now and Forever is a well produced album and with a more nuanced and varied album next time, Meduza should reach much higher grounds.