Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Trieste / Etnoblog / Italy
Concert date: April 11, 2012
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €20.00
Seventh Wonder are one of the central figures of the thriving Scandinavian progressive metal scene, alongside Mind’s Eye, Circus Maximus, Majestic, Minas Tirith, Moonlight Agony, Vindictiv, Triosphere, Silent Call (and we could go on). They may not have as wide a fan base as their prog compatriots Pain Of Salvation or Opeth, but they can boast a catalog of four studio albums that shine with that typical Scandinavian perfectionism. And each new release is a step up from the one before.
The “Scandinavian-style” prog metal of Seventh Wonder is marked by a finely tuned balancing act: melodic, highly listenable main motifs with a crescendo in the choruses, plus wizardry cooked up in the mold of complex Dream Theater-style passages that leave you breathless. When writing songs, they never sacrifice punch and compactness for the sake of showing off virtuoso complexity. That’s why Seventh Wonder are easy on the ears and, at the same time, astonishing in their technical polish and flawless execution.
The band released their latest studio album two years ago. It’s called »The Great Escape«, and some may remember it at least for the cover, which features a gigantic black widow spider with its legs spread wide.
It’s well known that on the Italian side of the border, anything meant for fun and relaxation always starts very late. The Trieste club Entnoblog was no different. On top of that, it was pouring like the start of the Great Flood that day, and the general atmosphere, right up to the point of stepping through the club’s door, felt like some godforsaken last place on earth.
By quarter past nine, Etnoblog was properly packed. Close to 200 people had squeezed in, which looked like a good omen for Seventh Wonder’s set. It turned out, though, that most of them had come to support the opener, Sinheresey, locals from Trieste. They’re sworn to the school of Nightwish, Leave’s Eyes, Epica and the like…, meaning symphonic power metal with a female voice front and center (combined with a male one), and they released their debut EP »The Spiders And The Butterfly« on that very day. Over a full 50 minutes they gave us a heavy dose of their own material, but this time you can only call it a less-than-successful show. The band ran into dreadful sound conditions courtesy of the sound engineer. All the instruments rumbled together in an indistinct mush, the guitar was muffled, and the keyboards couldn’t be made out at all for the whole gig. On top of that came the occasional noticeable off-pitch moment in the vocal melodies, and the vocals, one way or another, offered little more than a piercing soprano with an unformed character. The arrangements also felt very generic. Maybe different conditions on stage would have conjured a different feel, but there’s no point kidding ourselves. Sinheresey simply need mileage. The band also lacks stage dynamics and the charisma of a polished look, which goes hand in hand with stage presence and movement. Carniolan country-boy hats don’t belong in metal, which I hope the band’s male vocalist takes as well-meant advice. He still has to decide what to prioritize: growling, falsetto, or screaming. Switching between vocal approaches often ends up spoiling the mood the band builds with the female lead, rather than supporting it.
As for Seventh Wonder’s show, there was no worry that anything would go wrong. The top-notch gear being set up on stage before the set practically announced that you don’t mess with this band’s musicians. Especially after band leader and bassist Andreas Blomqvist strapped on John Myung’s signature six-string Yamaha bass and the band exploded onto the stage at quarter to eleven. Of the band’s current original members, only the fiendish guitarist Johan Liefvendahl keeps Andreas company, while the rest of the lineup is made up of keyboardist Andreas Söderin, newcomer – drummer Stefan Norgren, who replaced drummer Johnny Sändin last year, and the phenomenal vocalist Tommy Karevik. The band opened the show with Wiseman, from the current album »The Great Escape«. Interestingly, most of the set drew on the dark concept album »The Mercy Falls« (2009). Since the band left out the 30-minute title epic from the current album »The Great Escape«, they could only pick from the six shorter songs on it, and they cut three of them for this show (Wiseman, The King Of Whitewater and Alley Cat).
Seventh Wonder instantly hit the concert level that befits Swedish workhorses like these. They’re perfectionists who strive for flawlessness in everything they do. Even though the club space once again bared its teeth in acoustic terms, the sound was still acceptable, because the instruments came through clearly enough, and above all Tommy’s vocals carried the sound picture with a clear, recognizable, melodically pure and explosively authoritative character. The singer himself signaled a few times during the set that he had trouble hearing his vocals in the in-ear monitors, but from the outside, the band’s stage essence came across in the sound just fine.
The most surprising thing was that by the time Seventh Wonder came on, the crowd in the club had been cut in half. About 120 die-hards were left. And very fervent ones at that, who already stunned us in the opening stretch by knowing all the lyrics. The audience, which had crammed into Trieste for this show even from farther corners of northern Italy, such as the city of Padua, was ecstatic and loudly responsive throughout. The base of true fans is obviously small, but those few are seriously hooked on Seventh Wonder. Over the course of the show, these 100 or so people built an extremely intense and genuine bridge of chemistry with the band, which in the end made for a really lovely concert impression at Etnoblog.
Superb tightness and bravura execution are another name for Seventh Wonder. There are no slip-ups here. You can feel that the guys have a nice number of gigs behind them, that nothing throws them off track, and that they face every situation on stage and during a show with great confidence. After an hour and ten minutes, to the surprise of everyone present, the regular set was already over. With a younger band hungry to prove itself, you’d expect a regular set of at least an hour and a half. Anyway, the band returns for the obligatory encore, which they open with a cover of the Queen classic I Want It All. The band confirmed its innate sense for making the most of a given lead melody with a neat harmonization of the opening line of this otherwise demanding Queen classic. With two »Mercy Falls« songs, the ballad-like The Last Goodbye and the phenomenal prog metal chopper The Black Parade, Seventh Wonder wrapped up an intense show in Trieste after an hour and a half.
The band’s visit to Trieste was the first of five shows on a mini Italian tour that, after Trieste, took in Turin, Parma, Milan and Rovigo. Funnily enough, not a single Slovenian prog metal fan showed up in Trieste, even though their mouths are always full of prog metal. Anyone who listens to Dream Theater and (especially) Symphony X can’t get around the catalog of Seventh Wonder, a band that proved in Trieste, with feather-light ease, that with their stature and voice they’re more than worthy of attention from real fans of this kind of music.
Setlist
SINHERESEY:
1. Intro
2. The Spiders And The Butterfly
3. Merciless Game
4. Lying Dreams
5. 7 Days To The Wolves
6. Forever Us
7. Come In The Shadow
8. Temptation Flame
9. Center Of The Universe
10. When Darkness Falls
SEVENTH WONDER:
1. Wiseman
2. Hide And Seek
3. Welcome to the Mercy Falls
4. Tears For A Father
5. A Day Away
6. Taint the Sky
7. Alley Cat
8. Unbreakable
9. King Of Whitewater
—encore—
10. I Want It All (Queen cover)
11. One Last Goodbye
12. Black Parade
Photo Gallery
