DragonForce - Reaching Into Infinity

Published May 24 2017

*=Staff's pick	Reaching Into Infinity Ashes Of The Dawn* Judgement Day Astral Empires* Curse Of Darkness Silence Midnight Madness WAR!* Land Of Shattered Dreams The Edge Of The World Our Final Stand

Genre	Power Metal	Marc Hudson	Vocals
Tracks	11	Sam Totman	Guitar
Running time	61 Min.	Herman Li	Guitar
Label	earMusic	Frédéric Leclercq	Bass/Guitar
Release	May 19, 2017	Gee Anzalone	Drums
Country	England, et al.	Vadim Pruzhanov	Keyboard
Producer	Jens Bogren
Similar bands	-

Not everything is the same when the extreme power metallers DragonForce put out their new record Reaching Into Infinity. Most things remain pretty similar to before, such as the fast playing in general, the melodic aspect, the structure of the choruses and the guitar solos as an energetic outlet, but they have also sometimes changed the construction of the songs and created different kinds of bridges as well as tried to create new stuff sonically from time to time.

Perhaps I'm just looking intensively for fragments that could make this unit come out fresh once again, because, honestly, how many fast songs can a band actually write and record without ending up in the same vein? They have however put together one of their most brutal songs ever, WAR!, which isn't just an ordinary DragonForce fast song, but more a thrash metal thing and definitely an attempt to show another side of the band where the music comes out in a fuller sphere with power striking from every direction and where Hudson, without taking it too far, brings forth a new dimension of his singing with a more aggressive vent partially.

Nevertheless do they stay very solid with captivating melodies in a speedy territory and it's always a little bit interesting to check out what they're up to on every record regarding their guitar play and to see to what extent it's possible to further develop that explosive playing, since, as you probably know, they early on were taking stuff to sort of a near maximum then and there weren't at that point in time so many new highs to reach from there without going backwards into a more tranquil mode.

Besides the, in my opinion, kind of bland effort Ultra Beatdown from 2008, I think that this band always puts out good quality records and Reaching Into Infinity definitely ends up in that section too. It's not amazingly awesome and if you're quite familiar with this unit before, this record won't revolutionize your taste in music in any way, yet you will probably find it a little intriguing and that this one meets your personal requirements of a good album. If you on the contrary can't stand a mix of really fast, melodic and catchy stuff you will most likely hate everything about this effort, so in that case, don't even bother listening to this one.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	5	7	7	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe