Band:	Euphoreon
Album:	Euphoreon
Style:	Extreme power metal
Release date:	April 30, 2011
Guest review by:	Windrider

01. Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining
02. Before The Blackened Sky
03. Forever Being
04. Eleventh Heaven
05. Where Dead Skies Dwell
06. From The Netherworld
07. Starnight Rider
08. Road To Redemption

During the last few years I found that listening to underground bands which are new and unknown is not only kvlt but most of the time even more satisfying for both a metalhead's demand and purse. Euphoreon are one of the best examples of this genre in recent time. The thing is that underground bands often combine styles of different bands and are heavily influenced by bigger bands. Therefore they are the best prey for the originality police, but diamonds for the normal, not-fucking-around-to-get-attention metalheads. So how can those bands be diamonds? Example: You like Wintersun and marry Jari Mäenpää every night in your dreams, but the more Time withers away, the more you realize that Time will take its Time. You search for a transitional solution and find... Euphoreon!

Enough of nonsense talk, let's see what this band has to offer! The album with the witty name Euphoreon has 8 songs, almost all of an equal length. But it keeps more variety than it looks like. The first thing that pops into the metalhead's ear is: "...keyboards, orchestrations, synth sounds." Many like them, but I personally enjoy every song built on pure guitar riffs. This does not mean I don't like keyboards, in fact they improve many albums, but the songwriting changes a lot once you get in touch with synth sounds. If you are not able to resist the "easy music" faction of course... It is like playing "Chess with the Abyss", and many bands lose it. Overall, Euphoreon managed to keep on writing good riffs.

What the listener gets here are cool melodies, harsh breaks and thoughtful orchestrations. The whole album sounds like it contains ideas gathered within 10 years at least, mature is maybe a good word to describe it. There no fillers and no points where one is tempted to press the skip button. Heroic melodies make the Wintersun feeling perfect, although the lyrics are not as Alcest like as Jari's. The guitar tune lacks some bass sound but this is due to the overall higher pitched music, because so are the vocals and the instruments were kind of adapted to the vocals on this record. The riffs played on it are awesome nevertheless, many techniques flow through the songs. Back to the keyboards: I personally love those piano parts, whereas the orchestration stuff is a little bit exaggerated. The sound is good, but you know... more and more ain't always better. I am ok with that, though, since it is my only criticism of the album. Well, together with the somehow cheesy clean vocals maybe, but they are rare so it's ok!

Summing it all up is quite easy - you like Wintersun, keyboards and cool riffs? Then go grab it! You don't like cheesy sounds? Think twice about it first! You are proud of being an officer in the originality police? Get the fuck out! Euphoreon are cool, count them with the favourites in the "Debut Album of 2011" category.