Band:	Andromeda
Album:	Chimera
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	June 23, 2006
Guest review by:	Kap'N Korrupt

01. Periscope
02. In The End
03. The Hidden Riddle
04. Going Under
05. The Cage Of Me
06. No Guidelines
07. Inner Circle
08. Iskenderun
09. Blink Of An Eye

Andromeda's fourth album - that is, if you want to count Final Extension which most Andromeda fans will - marks the first album with bassist Fabian Gustavsson, a jazz influenced musician fresh out of music school. Songs like Periscope and In the End set up Chimera nicely progressive metal wise with slight power metal influences. I personally feel that this album is slightly more commercial. They might have been pressured by their new label to do this.

Fremberg returns with heavily theatrical vocals. The same keyboard tones and styles that created many a melody from II=I are also back. Chimera contains some poppy ballad tracks; Fremberg sounds very "emo" in many other tracks that come later on the album - an example here being The Hidden Riddle - making Chimera slightly more accessible, commercial or "neo-prog" in many places. This relates back to the argument that the new label contract might have pushed them into a slightly more accessible and less chaotic progressive sound. The album picks up in the middle and to the end with some mid-paced straight-forward progressive metal songs. Fremberg's voice here is more gruff and lower, sometimes with added production effects on songs like No Guidelines.

Many fans of the band complain that Andromeda have slightly lost their vision with Chimera. Others still think it's a very strong release with more of the same from past albums. The thing is that Chimera is very progressive and very well done. The problem is that Andromeda lacks in originality in this release, but makes up for it in the outstanding playing ability on every song. Time will tell with any new album in the future whether any new innovations occur in the band's overall sound.