Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Narnia
Label: Narnia Songs
Release: 2016
Length: 38:06
Rating: 4/5
The childhood fantasy world of Narnia lent its name, years ago, to a Swedish heavy metal outfit that is now back on the scene with a new studio album, four years after announcing a break. Their seventh. They’ve called it »Narnia«. It sounds a bit chewed-over, but the band, reawakening at this point in its development, simply felt it needed a touch of reaffirmation, so a title like that is more than fitting.
The main men are still vocalist Christian Liljegren and guitarist Carl Johann Grimmark, who, as the band’s creative nucleus, once again wrote all the music and arrangements for the new album. »Narnia« comes across like a seventh album should, and it’s astonishingly fresh. Compositionally, this band has had a big knack from day one for hypersensitively chasing ultra-melodicism and, as a result, building pomp into the arrangements themselves.
»Narnia« is a textbook power metal album that sprang from northern Europe, i.e. Scandinavian soil. It’s hyper-melodic, hooks you on the first spin, and is incredibly concise in its arrangements. »Weirdness« simply doesn’t fly here. It’s marked by Grimmark’s almost Malmsteen-esque school of Scandinavian-style electric guitar playing, with solos steeped in neo-classical licks and a baroque fussing-over of the finer points of guitar phrasing. Above the devilishly seductive guitar riffs soars Liljegren’s vocal maneuvering, inspired by Ronnie James Dio, though going by timbre and approach you could slot him somewhere between Dio, Rob Rock (solo, Impellitteri) and fellow Swede Joachim Cans (HammerFall, ex-Warlord).
At first listen, the material Narnia serve up might seem »outdated« and played out given the extreme and technical advances of modern metal, but once any curious soul skims the band’s bio, it quickly becomes clear that Narnia are in fact power metal revivalists who showed up on the scene in the second half of the nineties alongside HammerFall, so the recycling is completely justified, and then some. Required, even. No wonder the riffs, armored all the way through with double-bass-drum pounding, clean and authoritative singing and anthemic catchiness, pull now toward HammerFall, now toward Falconer, and thanks to the incredible melodic hookiness, now toward the solo records of Rob Rock, Magnus Karlsson (the Freefall project), or even Grimmark’s side project Audiovision.
The album »Narnia« is an excellent, if not downright superb, new studio record from the band. You could call it their most confessional and, in character, heaviest and most detailed work to date. Narnia are making a big-time return to the scene, and this one is tailor-made for every fan of the good old Scandinavian school of European power metal! You’ll have to pick your favorites entirely on your own this time, because the album is incredibly consistent and there’s no dip in quality from track to track. Just that insane catchiness of the chorus melodies, with the songs across the album stealing the spotlight from one another.
Narnia – The Messengers (official animated video):
Line-up
Christian Liljegren – vocals
CJ Grimmark – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Andreas “Habo” Johansson – drums
Martin Härenstam – keyboards
Andreas Passmark – bass guitar
Production
CJ Grimmark & Christian Liljegren
Tracklist
1. Reaching for the Top (3:38)
2. I Still Believe (4:30)
3. On the Highest Mountain (4:42)
4. Thank You (5:22)
5. One Way to the Promised Land (4:46)
6. Messengers (3:32)
7. Who Do You Follow? (4:10)
8. Moving On (3:42)
9. Set the World on Fire (3:40)
