Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: May 7, 2021
Production: Herbie Langhans
Album length: 54.27 min
Genre: Power Metal
Rating: 8.0/10
Sonic Haven is a new German heavy metal and power metal four-piece, brought to life by one of the most talented German vocalists the European power metal scene has washed ashore in recent years. That’s Herbie Langhans, known for his work with Firewind, Sinbreed, Voodoo Circle, Beyond the Bridge and the Avantasia project. Around himself, Langhans has gathered a great crew: drummer André Hilgers (Bonfire, Rage, Silent Force), guitarist Carsten Stepanowicz (Radiant) and bassist Dominik Stotzem (Beyond the Bridge).
So this is a very experienced and, you could say, already mature musical crew right from the band’s launch, one that walked into the studio for the debut with a very clearly worked-out vision and goal: to make a very classic German power metal album, which is basically a blend of all the bands listed above. The album’s first magnet is definitely Langhans’ outstanding vocal range. He shows off some real chameleon skills, combining several different characters with different temperaments. His performance is equally piercing whether he goes for pure, authoritative commanding or clamps down on the vocal cords and goes guttural. Langhans also hammers out those extremely high vocal lines without any trouble. No wonder he landed the gig with Avantasia.
The band doesn’t serve up anything you haven’t heard before, but this new lineup of four musicians cooks up its own version of reheating a tried-and-tested musical recipe that – and you’ll be able to predict this yourself – ignites once again, efficiently and convincingly. Even though they ride the tracks within a strictly drawn genre template, they develop a welcome variety in songwriting, the guitar phrases are piercingly fiery and instantly captivating, and the overall musicality of the album is the same. The songs crawl under your skin one after another. The soloing and the “elusive ingenuity” of the phrase embellishments (including three-part harmonies) are at the standard level that every high-quality power metal album has demanded for years.
Herbie Langhans handled the production of the debut, while the mixing and mastering went to his Avantasia buddy, Sascha Paeth, a renowned German producer and sound engineer when it comes to power metal albums. Miro contributed the orchestrations for the album. You can hear it in the rise of epic bombast in certain parts of the album, as is clearly noticeable in Keep the Flame Alive, though there’s no danger of Miro “turning” Sonic Haven into Rhapsody of Fire.
The band can also show a considerable dose of dark scowling and moments of complete doom, as the vibe and mood of The Darker Side bring, but even in such moments it doesn’t deny its sense of highly infectious musicality. The excellent performance has to be highlighted, as well as the detailing of the musical packaging itself. The arrangements are wrapped up bombastically and speak to you with a greedy dose of drama theater. The crew shows off plenty of mileage and experience. Perhaps everyone would have survived without the far too predictable ballad Save The Best For Last, which, in the glow of a “metal-Eurovision chanson,” takes some momentum out of the record in its second half. Striking Back – the album’s closing track – after its hunt for anthemic grandeur, takes its cue from the modern approaches of the likes of Sabaton, Bloodbound, or even Powewolf. It opens right with the chorus and, with the manner just described, a very characteristic songwriting maneuver.
So what you’ve got here is almost 55 minutes of a journey through the musical legacy of the German, or let’s just say European, power metal tradition. Sonic Haven will definitely be interesting to every power metal fan, since in sound and style they also rub shoulders in pinches with bands that have noticeable expressive deviations among them, like Primal Fear, Dream Evil and even later Helloween. The staunch and dedicated lover of musically hyper-sensitive yet pleasingly bristly, uncompromising rattling won’t think too long about this record, but will adopt it in no time.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Vagabond
2. Back To Mad
3. Nightmares
4. Keep The Flame Alive
5. End Of The World
6. The Darker Side
7. I Believe
8. Save The Best For Last
9. Blind The Enemy
10. From White To Black
11. Striking Back
Line-up:
Herbie Langhans – vocals, backing vocals
Carsten Stepanowicz – guitar
Dominik Stotzem – bass
André Hilgers – drums
