Label: Silver Lining Music/Hell & Back
Release date: September 25, 2026
Production: Tom Dalgety
Album length: 41:19 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 9/10
Europe, the Swedish glam metal sensation of the eighties that got swallowed up in the whirlwind of fame by the greed of the record labels of the day, are enjoying a full-blown renaissance in their mature years. “Come This Madness”, the new album, follows its predecessor “Walk This Earth” after a nine-year gap, which is one hefty stretch of time.
“Come This Madness” is an album with plenty to show and plenty to say. On it, Europe very successfully follow the musical direction that crystallized on their previous two albums, “War of Kings” (2015) and the aforementioned “Walk This Earth” (2017), except that with the new album they speak within that direction in the most mature and accomplished way yet, artistically speaking. Both previous albums have an undeniable artistic appeal, no doubt about it, but compared with everything they’ve done since relaunching the band in 2003, “Come This Madness” comes across as the most consistent, compact and artistically focused. On this one, Europe have definitely come of age as artists. Actually, they’ve found themselves, as if they’d gone back to the cradle where it all began. Only now the beginner’s naivety has been replaced by the experience and maturity of five wise men. They’ve grown into what they always wanted to be, while the commercial currents of their golden era kept pushing them elsewhere. John Norum sparkles with wit in his phrasing and especially in his perfectly woven solos, driven by that inner perfectionism of chasing the perfect melody and a firm, expressive note. The guitarist is in exactly the right place at every single moment of the new album. In terms of arrangements and the production itself, the band sounds tighter and more polished than ever. These are guys who are big gentlemen today and who have known each other since childhood. There’s no hide-and-seek. What there is, though, are bonds that can’t be broken and through which these guys keep growing all the time. That’s reflected in their newest original music too, where these five gentlemen phenomenally, contemplatively sense one another throughout and communicate in both ideas and execution. The album’s sound is used to the full, it’s dazzling, organic and breathes with full lungs! And exactly the same can be said of the arrangements of these finely honed compositions. Most of the songs on the new album were written by Joey Tempest and Mic Michaeli, with John Leven joining in on several.
The new Europe, or let’s call it the post-millennial Europe, are constantly searching for a raw yet musical sound that’s distinctly melancholic in its songwriting, while through that melancholy they try to capture the level of dramatic theater that sucks the listener straight into the story of each song. This time Europe passed their doctoral exam in this department with the highest honors. Not only are the songs extremely varied (within the songwriting format they’ve laid out), which means a lot of material was written and the band had plenty of time to pick the best of the best, but every song also hits you with a distinctly gripping atmosphere, through which the album’s dark yet strikingly musical melancholy blows. It doesn’t really get more convincing than this in the hard rock formula they cultivate, which is backed by all the band’s unique charisma.
All the songs boast an elaborate link between verse and chorus (with pre-choruses as bridges), which is just further proof of the exceptional talent of the five excellent musicians who make up this legendary Scandinavian hard rock outfit. That’s why “Come This Madness” runs at the highest revs of high-dynamic flow. It grabs you, tight and powerful! From start to finish. Add to that the excellent lyrics delivered by the one-of-a-kind singer Joey Tempest, which, combined with the way the songs are structured, come across as the most mature to date, and you’ve captured the essence of this album.
The album opens at high atmospheric revs with One On One. A piercing riff, a piercing vocal delivery from the irreplaceable Joey Tempest, then in the chorus Mic Michaeli’s keyboards grab hold of the venomous riffing too, over the solid rhythm section of John Leven and Ian Haugland. Entries, exits, transitional ornaments, everything holds up! Right where it has to. “Come This Madness” reflects the extraordinary maturity and know-how of five musicians. The melancholic bombast of dramatic theater reaches atmospheric peaks in the singalong choruses! That goes, among others, for Cult Of Ignorance too – lyrically one of the most bitingly socially critical moments on the new album. The title track counts as one of the best songs on the new album and should find a place on the concert stage too. You can’t imagine a darker Europe than the one the title track captures. The combination of clever keyboard use wrapping around the dark riffing works flawlessly. Europe are masters of contrasting turns when they string together atmospheric leaps between verse and chorus (the title track, and In A Different Word – the rustling synths holding one note behind the riff do absolutely all the work in the chorus there). This Time Of Year is a melancholic, yearning ballad about pre-New Year’s memories of a former love. Here, too, everything is right where it has to be.
When you get to Scandinavian Eyes, you know exactly which track opens side B of the vinyl. No, it’s not a ballad, as you might guess from the title, but one of the sharpest moments on the whole album, one that could have opened the album itself, though the band chose One On One for that. In places (intro, outro, mid-eight passage, chorus melody), Scandinavian Eyes bears a resemblance in its melodic development to Dark Ride by Helloween. In Taking It Back and Devil’s Back, Europe come across as especially traditional in serving up their hard rock recipe. The structure of these two songs breathes that pioneering spirit of the forefathers of rock, with comparisons always readily landing on Deep Purple, MSG and Rainbow, while The Devil’s Back actually comes across as a ‘mini hommage to’ Uriah Heep (the feeling is reinforced by the Hammond organ). Fusing neo-classical structures with old-school bluesy tricks! Especially likeable is the bare, raw, strikingly dazzling and bristling opening riff of The Angel Must Have Flown, which transforms through the pre-chorus into one of the album’s most musical chorus melodies. Masterful. And the closer, Nothing Can Follow This? Built in A minor, where the melancholy of the verse gives way to a rousing chorus melody, and with it another phenomenal theatrical twist, stamped with the distinctly melancholic, yearning atmosphere of the whole album. “Come This Madness” is an album that’s bound to get under any rock fan’s skin.
It’s hard to add anything more about this truly phenomenal new release from the legendary Europe. “Come This Madness” was worth all the waiting. An album with a strikingly dynamic flow of events, a gripping atmosphere that instantly sucks the listener in, and a polished finish that follows the axiom of chasing the perfect musical yield through a “less is more” approach to songwriting. “Come This Madness” is a brilliantly accomplished new studio album. The Japanese edition also includes the excellent bonus track Heavens Above, so if you’re a big Europe fan, that may be a reason to pick up that version too. It’s incredible where the band has arrived. Home. Straight home. Doing what it always wanted to do, and doing it now more mature and wiser than ever before, with incredible artistic zeal and drive. It’s clear the story doesn’t end here, and that’s how it should stay. I can say it: the hard rock album of 2027.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. One on One
2. The Cult of Ignorance
3. Come This Madness
4. This Time of Year
5. In a Different World
6. Scandinavian Eyes
7. Takin’ It Back
8. In the Absence of Grace
9. The Angels Must Have Flown
10. The Devil’s Back
11. Nothing Can Follow This
Lineup:
Joey Tempest – lead vocals, backing vocals
John Norum – guitar, backing vocals
Mic Michaeli – keyboards, orchestral arrangements, backing vocals
John Levén – bass guitar
Ian Haugland – drums
