Moonlight Agony - Silent Waters

Published March 20 2007

*=Staff's pick	Leaving Solitude You Betrayed Me* Soulless Through The Desert Storm The Dark Era I'm Alive Room 101 Different Stories* The Blood Red Sails Solemn Waters

Genre	Progressive Metal	David Åkesson	Vocals
Tracks	10	Kalle Landin	Guitar
Runningtime	45 Min.	Rickard Petersson	Guitar
Label	Dockyard 1	Christer Pedersen	Bass
Release	26 March 2007	Robert Willstedt	Drums
Country	Sweden	Martin Mellström	Keyboard
Similar artists	Symphony X, Evergrey

Swedish band Moonlight Agony made a huge impact on me with their 2004 debut, Echoes Of A Nightmare. Hell, it was even one of the top three albums released that year according to me. With a new vocalist and a new man on bass they return with Silent Waters and there is some more obvious changes that have been made apart from the line-up. Moonlight Agony have reduced the power metal elements and instead they are focusing heavier on the progressive parts, still with a pleasurable taste for speed but not as much of merry melodies.

Already with the opening song Leaving Solitude it is clear that the band has progressed, but the most obvious change comes with the new vocalist David Åkesson. He is the one that got the ungrateful task to replace the extraordinary vocalist Chitral Samapala (ex-Firewind). David sings in a way that make his voice sound strained at all times, and it becomes arduous to hear in the long run. It sounds like he is limited in his vocal range and his voice does not seem to fit Moonlight Agony as well as the voice from Chitral did, which had a more melodic touch to it. Although, in the hard-hitting and heavily Symphony X inspired song You Betrayed Me. which is delivered in a forceful splendour, his voice works fine with the catchy yet heavy refrain.

The fact that the band has matured even further with their song writing is to be seen as a good thing. The songs are of structures that are more complex and the individual performances are even better as well, but this is not of all good nature. I must say that I really miss the more power metal influenced material from Moonlight Agony. On Echoes Of A Nightmare you could find catchy refrains in the manor of Gamma Ray but that is shining with its absence here, and that is unfortunate in my opinion. So, even if the songs are performed greatly there is something important missing - the passion. Silent Waters comes out as a technical album performed in a clinical way with no feelings whatsoever, the pursuit of becoming a more progressive band has been done with the cost of the emotional playing, you could say that the magic has gone out the window.

On their last album I wanted more detailed guitars, and I am happy to say that there has been a huge improvement in that department, and both the keys and strings offer some nice progressive breaks in the songs. I'm Alive, which does have some emotion in it, comes out as a balanced song and has a lead with the keys with an organ sound reminding of Dream Theater and it works really well. But at the end of the day, this album leaves me with disappointment and there are only two songs on Silent Waters that I carry with me which are the mentioned You Betrayed Me and Different Stories, that blends progressive with power metal and has a part reminding of the music Danny Elfman makes for Tim Burton's movies.

Symphony X and Evergrey are the bands that come closest in comparison to Moonlight Agony, and with Silent Waters they musically place themselves right in-between, but what those bands have that Moonlight Agony don't anymore is a vocalist that stands out.

See also review of: Echoes Of A Nightmare

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	4	7	4	5

Summary
4 chalices of 10 - Thomas