Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: January 21, 2022
Production: Magnus Karlsson
Album length: 56.30 min
Genre: Melodic Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
The Ferrymen, the international melodic metal sensation made up of Chilean vocalist Ronnie Romero, Swedish guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Magnus Karlsson and American drummer Mike Terrana, are back with their third studio album, once again backed by the big bosses at Frontiers Music Srl. This time they’ve named it “One More River To Cross”. Whether that’s a metaphor for the project’s last album, given the label contract, we’ll see, but I doubt it.
Karlsson is a well-known label legionnaire. The studio kind. Sort of a Swedish multi-instrumental counterpart to Italy’s Alessandro Del Vecchio, except he can’t boast particularly ‘sky-high’ vocal chops. Still, in recent years Magnus has eased off a bit from the incredible creative frenzy he was best known for in the first decade of the new millennium, when material for albums by all sorts of artists (‘clients’) under the Frontiers Music Srl. umbrella just rained down from him. Even so, Magnus stays Magnus. Good goods don’t spoil. He sticks to his recipe, which he has down to a science and which always lands him a winning four of a kind in aces, even if it’s really just extremely skillful recycling and serving up of things we’ve already heard, only in a refreshed and wildly tempting package.
The shrewd, seasoned Magnus has once again stitched together an enviable haul of no fewer than eleven tracks, and the album runs a hefty length again, yet it doesn’t bore for a second. So what sets the project’s third album, and the project itself, apart from the rest of this musician’s projects (FreeFall, Last Tribe, Starbreaker, Allen/Lande, Place Vendome,…), even though the songwriting style is essentially very similar? The desired detour comes from the other two musicians involved. The first is the drum-savvy heavyweight Mike Terrana, the second the extraordinary vocalist Ronnie Romero. With their musical personalities they add that necessary pinch of ‘difference’. Especially Romero, who as usual blows himself apart vocally into ‘prime factors’ once more. The man floors you with his vocal performance and remains at the very top of the vocalists of his generation. Terrana – his gigantic ego is well known, since he demands a huge amount of attention and expressive room for himself, but here he can be quite restrained in places and doesn’t push to the front. On tracks like City of Hate and/or Bringer of the Dark, the darker moments of the album, he certainly steps on the gas too, and in those moments the album picks up a hefty dose of heavy metal bristle, which can be likened to Primal Fear as well as to Rage from the days when Terrana drummed in that band. But once again Karlsson’s devotion to the elements of AOR, or melodic rock, is clearly underlined. Keyboard arrangements are present at every turn of the album, which certainly brings its look closer to a project like Allen/Lande. Terrana is definitely hard to miss. On the album he ‘fires off’ a few killer fill rolls that have always given this drummer his trademark stamp of uniqueness, as hinted at, among others, in Hurt Me To The End Of The World.
So with “One More River To Cross”, The Ferrymen once again live up to their mission in every way. The ones happiest with the product are, of course, its ‘clients’ again, i.e. the label’s management, but all fans of Karlsson’s approach to songwriting, as well as of Lords Of The Black, will find it impossible to resist. Occasional parallels with Victor Smolski’s Almanac, Primal Fear and the ‘classic Terrana days’ in Rage are possible too, because “One More River To Cross” is sharpened and possessed enough, metal-wise, to hook even those of you who demand at least a pinch of dark, doomy atmosphere, even though the new album is once again ultra-musically infectious at every turn. Karlsson has once again churned out some seriously fascinating compositions that stand out on the album. That’s definitely the title track, with its phenomenal chorus, as well as Shut It Out, seasoned with oriental ornaments. He has again shaken out some outstanding moments of guitar soloing. Magnus is known first and foremost as an exceptional guitarist, and I’m convinced many metal purists would rather see him play only guitar on albums and leave the keyboards completely alone. The title track especially has the stamp of a neo-classical (power) metal epic symphony – lavish orchestral touches are added to the arrangements, which gives the song a special air of blissful grandeur. Needless to say, Karlsson is a master of implanting drama theater and gigantic pomp, and this album is saturated with it at every turn.
“One More River To Cross” is nothing less and nothing more than yet another excellent offering from this project, and I dare say the most mature, polished and detailed of all three. If nothing else, it’s certainly the darkest and most ominous. Its fans will be more than thrilled.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. One Word
2. The Last Wave
3. Shut It Out
4. City Of Hate
5. One More River To Cross
6. Morning Star
7. Hunt Me To The End Of The World
8. Bringers Of The Dark
9. The Other Side
10. The Last Ship
11. The Passenger
Line-up:
Ronnie Romero – vocals
Magnus Karlsson – guitar, keyboards, bass guitar
Mike Terrana – drums
