Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Serious Black
Label: AFM Records
Release: 2016
Runtime: 36:06
Rating: 3.5/5
Serious Black is not a Harry Potter parody. It’s a new melodic metal band, or let’s just call it a power metal band, that got off to a very successful start last year. The founding lineup even featured Roland Grapow (Msterplan, ex-Helloween) and Tomen Stauch (ex-Blind Guardian), though both later bowed out of permanent membership for other reasons.
On January 16, 2015, Serious Black released their debut studio album “As Daylight Breaks” on the long-running German label AFM Records. It was very well received, and the band hit the road as an opener on two European tours. First came a winter 2015 run warming up crowds for Swedish power metal old-timers HammerFall, then in November of the same year they opened for Gamma Ray, the veteran Hamburg power metallers led by the father of European metal, Kai Hansen.
Both touring adventures were obviously a huge success, and they opened the door to the band’s first headlining tour, where the main goal is to promote the new studio album »Mirrorworld«, which is what the following lines are all about.
»Mirrorworld« offers eight new songs (plus an instrumental intro) that try to evoke the bombast and pomp of the debut’s melodic charm. And for the most part, the guys pull off their musical vision again on the new album. After the intro, Serious Black hit you with two hyper-pulsing smashers, As Long As I Am Alive and Castor Skies. Two truly excellent tracks that immediately bring to mind Masterplan, Helloween (from their better days) and Gamma Ray. Urban Breed, the excellent Swedish singer who sang for Bloodbound before joining Serious Black, approaches the opener As Long As I Am Alive with a very noticeable Ronnie James Dio inspiration. You won’t feel that again later on the album. The song works brilliantly as an album opener and as a first catalyst that builds atmosphere! The crescendo of the whole mood sits in the chorus melody. Castor Skies, which follows, is a notch more melodically infectious, with one of the most successful power metal choruses to come out of the scene in the last few years. No wonder it evokes the golden age of power metal from the second half of the nineties and the first years of the new millennium.
After that, the album calms down. The punchy start is followed by the mid-tempo Heartbroken Soul and then Dying Hearts. In both, Serious Black put most of their focus on building atmosphere, but it’s obvious that faster rhythms suit them better. Urban Breed also adjusts his singing, settling into a mid-range delivery and even dipping into lower registers. Heartbroken Soul mostly bores, and it’s clear that on Dying Hearts Serious Black are trying to pull off an atmospheric effect similar to Masterplan’s Enlightern Me, only with far less payoff. Anyway, it’s a decent chorus, but it doesn’t leave a particular mark. You’re Not Alone brings the faster rhythms back to the album. The clichéd riff and generic song development get a successful shot of life from the wild guitar solos of Dominik Sebastian and Bob Katsionis. Despite the copycatting, power metal headbangers will come away completely satisfied.
The title track then effectively “bites through” the middle, i.e. the duller part of the album, with Serious Black successfully embodying a dark atmosphere and adding a pompous touch. Here the vocal reach of the excellent Urban Breed makes effective use of a wide range and the authoritative power of a highly melodic approach. The song stands as one of the album’s highlights all on its own. A mid-tempo, lavish pomp anthem. Unfortunately, the album then gets somewhat “suffocated” by the rather pathetic State of My Despair, with another dose of clichés. Luckily, the closing The Unborn Never Die pulls the album back up, evoking the energy of the title track in many ways and wrapping things up on the required punchy and darkly pompous level. Predatory, melodic, pompous, infectious! Enough, though not to the fullest.
Although »Mirrrorworld« keeps up a high quality of songwriting and composition for the most part, you can feel that it followed the debut too quickly, and that debut was stuffed with pompous anthemic energy and was therefore the more convincing product. Apart from four standout tracks, the rest of the album doesn’t smash clichés convincingly enough, and the songwriting ideas this time around aren’t as strong as they were on the debut. Still, it’s a thoroughly nice, high-quality, highly melodic and infectious power metal album.
Serious Black – Castor Skies (official video):
Lineup
Urban Breed – vocals
Bob Katsionis – guitar
Dominik Sebastian – guitar
Jan Vacik – keyboards
Mario Lochert – bass guitar
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Alex Holzwarth – drums
Production
Serious Black
Track list
1. Breaking the Surface (01:52)
2. As Long as I’m Alive (04:01 )
3. Castor Skies (04:23)
4. Heartbroken Soul (03:45)
5. Dying Hearts (05:02)
6. You’re Not Alone (03:41)
7. Mirrorworld (05:01)
8. State of My Despair (04:27)
9. The Unborn Never Die (03:52)
