Artist: Seventh Wonder
Label: Lion Records
Release: 2008
Length: 74:06
Rating: 4.5/5
Their second studio album “Waiting In The Wings” (2006, RockLine review HERE) made it undeniably clear that Seventh Wonder are a band with exceptional potential. It was a potential built on blending the best defining traits of what progressive metal is all about.
The times we live in aren’t kind to the strains of metal that lean first and foremost on melody. Sure, the popularity of genres runs in cycles. And right now, sadly, interest in melody has pretty much slammed into rock bottom, and along with “power metal”, progressive metal is suffering too. Still, bands live on and keep fighting their way forward. And Seventh Wonder are among them: a completely unburdened musical unit that has stepped up another notch with “Mercy Falls” and delivered the most ambitious achievement of their career so far.
There’s a concept hiding behind the music on “Mercy Falls”. It’s fairly complex and pretty hard to untangle, but toward the end of the album a dialogue between a married couple brings it into focus:
“Honey?”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“I’m sorry, but this child isn’t yours!”
Can that kind of flatness in its brutality actually hit even harder? That women can be real snakes has been known for ages, but this is really where the whole story of the “Mercy Falls” concept kicks off. A family is driving through a place called Mercy Falls when the wife drops the fateful line on her poor husband. Heartbreaker! The guy somehow manages to choke out: “What?!?!”, and then pretty quickly loses control of the wheel. What follows is the tragedy of a car crash, after which the poor guy drifts off into a coma, while the wife and the “unintended” son survive. The “comatose” state is the core of the concept. All sorts of things swirl through his head, the whole family visits the patient throughout his hospital stay and cries on his shoulders. It all feels like a pathetic mix of madness and pain, with the characters confessing all kinds of things. Even though he can’t hear them, the words get through the logical mind and “feed” the subconscious. The unfortunate guy, father and husband, finally breathes his last. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Not because they wished it on him. It’s because they realize just how important the power of forgiveness is.
It’s a complex tale, and the concept’s authors clearly found their footing in it, especially bassist Andreas Blomqvist, who was going through one of the tougher stretches of his life while the album was coming together, and singer Tommy Karevik. In the hands of such an intelligent band of highly skilled musicians, this newly chosen path is almost a logical move, one that has widened their artistic reach even further.
There are 15 tracks. Some work as interludes that, in terms of the story’s concept, nudge the patient’s subconscious into action. The band uses these shorter musical snippets, wedged between the longer (proper!) songs, purely to deliver the concept. So no storytelling, no narration, just music. Singer Tommy Karevik, in these in-between, transitional tracks, brings the roles of the son, the mother and the wife to life, and in them he takes the absolute spotlight over the other building blocks of the Seventh Wonder sound.
The band obviously decided that this was the best way to tie the whole concept together. Admittedly, a few of the overly melodramatic and syrupy outbursts get in the way now and then, reminiscent of the cheesiness of Mexican and American prime-time soap operas. And yet the whole thing is cleverly wrapped in the superb quality of the main tracks. Those are, of course, longer and richly varied, with the signature layered rhythms that occasionally break in properly progressive fashion. In them the band chases all the freedom that its spirit of experimenting and trying things out calls for. Of course, that is bound to classical foundations, which can’t exceed the usual limits of the strictly drawn melodic form of symphonies and overtures. On one hand a curse, on the other a blessed gift.
But this is exactly where Seventh Wonder manage to squeeze out the maximum in terms of expression. They steer a great course down the middle between complex structure and infectious melody. These are also the trademarks of other Scandinavian bands that keep the message of progressive metal alive today, like Circus Maximus, Vindictiv, Platitude or Vox Tempus. This is the “modern” approach in prog metal. So forget the butchery of the bloated Dream Theater, who haven’t managed to produce an inspired album in ten years. And speaking of Dream Theater, it has to be said that Seventh Wonder look up to the American prog metal champs big time. But they pull from them whatever helps them most in staying tight and compact, and that lets them convincingly resist the danger of the songs falling apart under too many motifs. From Dream Theater they inherited, for instance, that “Kevin Moore” era synth sound. They then enriched the keyboard solo lines with additional arrangements, so in places the album sounds like a symphony orchestra is playing on it. The keyboards work great when they lock in with the riffs and trade solos with the guitar. The riffing is clearly front and center, and the punch that the “metal” label demands never limps in the production or lags behind the other building blocks of the Seventh Wonder sound. The guitar solos occasionally show they belong to the typical Swedish school of Yngwie J. Malmsteen, but they’re smartly dosed and balanced out with more accessible melodic passages that ease the tension of the occasional avalanche of notes. The tenth track Break The Silence takes the absolute top spot on the album precisely because of the outstanding instrumental dialogue in the middle section, where Seventh Wonder are especially impressive in their own expressive character. The moods breathe, they’re alive and can even get along with a hint of unpredictability as they flow wildly into one another, even in the more complex parts.
But the most important link between the listener and the band is Tommy Karevik’s vocals. They win you over instantly with their color, sensuality and highly authoritative melodic sense. The guy slips skillfully into many roles, and the emotional side of this album is masterfully capitalized on through the way he delivers the verses. He reaches his peak and, with it, the goal. The lines he picks in the verses can recall the expressive power of Dream Theater in their heyday in the first half of the nineties, but the voice is much fuller, livelier, warmer, and above all more harmonic across every register, which brings him close to the expressive power of Russell Allen (Symphony X), even though his timbre lacks that gruffness (except when it’s added on purpose, to convey anger or passion). He’d also do great in melodic hard rock settings. And last but not least, a very important thing, through which the band hits the peaks of mood in the choruses: backing vocals that even the most polished AOR bands of the golden eighties would envy.
Another strength of Seventh Wonder is the excellent bass lines, which triumphantly flirt with the unpredictable rhythmic twists of the witty, sparkling drumming. That gives the album an extra dose of dynamic variety and liveliness. The bass lines are clearly audible, practically carved out of the core of the sonic picture, as they constantly explore the limits of their melodic range with their work. The way Seventh Wonder pull off this craft can be a real shining example for other progressive metal bands.
Seventh Wonder also picked up a ton of skills from working with Mind’s Eye workaholic Daniel Flores, who helped shape the album with plenty of useful advice, to the point that it’s perfectly accessible and clear even to the casual layperson.
“Mercy Falls” is the album on which Seventh Wonder earned their doctorate in their own sound and expression. It builds on its predecessor “Waiting For The Wings” in every element of expression. It offers a great collision of story concept and musical composition. It’s a solid bone to gnaw on, appealing both to those of you who chase perfection and consider yourselves audiophiles, and to those who demand absolute insistence on constantly flowing lead motifs. At the same time, it will also satisfy those who demand a clear emphasis on compact lead motifs, that is, those who put the hunt for infectious melodies above all else. Just like the band, which delivers for all of them at every moment, “Mercy Fall” is a great album that even less demanding listeners can use as a way into the realm of progressive metal, and an album they’ll gladly return to without hesitation for many years after its release. But reality is different, since these days the masses can’t afford to enjoy good music anymore. So “Mercy Falls” is modest in its search for a target audience, yet at the same time an extraordinary achievement in terms of quality, one that keeps the message of world progressive metal intact even in times of its lesser popularity. Fortunately, despite how unfairly underrated Seventh Wonder are, at least some of us are aware of the brilliance of this band’s musical craft.
Line-up
Tommy Karevik – vocals
Johan Liefvendahl – guitar
Andreas Söderin – keyboards
Andreas Blomqvist – bass
Johnny Sandin – drums
Production
Tommy Hansen
Track list
1. A New Beginning (3:05)
2. There And Back (Overture) (3:02)
3. Welcome To Mercy Falls (5:11)
4. Unbreakable (7:18)
5. Tears For A Father (1:58)
6. A Day Away (3:43)
7. Tears For A Son (1:43)
8. Paradise (5:44)
9. Fall In Line (6:09)
10. Break The Silence (9:29)
11. Hide And Seek (7:46)
12. Destiny Calls (6:17)
13. One Last Goodbye (4:21)
14. Back In Time (1:14)
15. The Black Parade (6:57)
