Last Tribe - The Uncrowned

*=Staff's pick	Healer* The Chosen One Sacrifice* The Uncrowned* Otherworld* April Sky Sound Of Kain Only The Innocent Full Moon Call Of The Tribe*

Genre	Melodic Metal	Rickard Bengtsson	Vocals
Tracks	10	Magnus Karlsson	Guitar
Runningtime	51 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Frontiers	Dick Lövgren	Bass
Release	03 Dec. 2003	Jamie Salazar	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Kamelot, Conception, Symphony X

Last Tribe let you immediately know that their strength lies within the great melodies that they deliver.
And that is one thing that they let us know especially with the refrains, it feels most of the time as the verses is simply a transport towards the refrains that are those that sticks to your mind directly from the first time listening at them. Catchy, melodic with a nice flow in the rhythm for the most of the time and backed up with keyboards it melts together splendidly.

The Uncrowned marks the third release from Swedish band Last Tribe and as far as I have come to understand the band is based around their guitarist Magnus Karlsson and similarities can be found with bands such as Kamelot, Conception, Symphony X and Royal Hunt. Kamelot has an apparent and great flow within their music and that is something that Last Tribe also has managed successfully with as I get the same vibe from listening to both of the bands. The progressive elements can somewhat be drawn to Symphony X where I can find a likeness in the construction of the songs but yet not quite as progressive.

Normally I'm not that keen on ballads but with Sacrifice I'm forced to surrender, it is simply to beautiful to resist not least with the melodylines in the chorus, its touching. When it comes to the title track The Uncrowned it is impossible to overlook the similarities with Kamelot, already from the first note you can hear them but that isn't anything that gets in the way for me to hold it as one of the better ones on the album. The Otherworld is another track that I would like to point out, probably the one with the most powerful verses and a mid-tempo chorus that I've found myself humming along to complete with some of the best guitarplaying on the album. The only track that I doesn't enjoy is Full Moon that feels like a filler, several unfinished ideas chunked together to one track with a terrible chorus, but one out of ten is nothing that disturbs me to enjoy the rest of this album.

Vocalist Rickard Bengtsson has a really powerful and emotional voice that binds the music together in a great way as Magnus Karlsson proofs himself to be an explicit guitarist. His technical style of playing has a neo-classical touch to it and to me it feels like a mix of the styles from Thomas Youngblood (Kamelot) and John Petrucci (Dream Theater). Magnus delivers some really clever guitarlines and it is more playing rather than just riffing from his guitar, but it tends to feel a bit lonely. A second guitarist that could have backed up all these wonderful guitarlines and brought some more depth to the music would have been to ask for.

The album feels really well balanced and the professionalism from the band shines through in a good way, this is exceptionally well done and is quality without a doubt. But nevertheless it feels a bit to harmless in general, Last Tribe give me the sense of that they are restrained and I think a little more aggression could have really filled its purpose on this one, and I don't mean that Rickard Bengtsson should apply growls to his voice, just a little bit more heaviness should have done the trick.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Thomas