Band:	Nightingale
Album:	Nightfall Overture
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2005
Guest review by:	Ch'ti

01. Nightfall Overture
02. The Dreamreader
03. Revival
04. Steal The Moon
05. Alonely
06. I Return
07. The Glory Days
08. Shadowland Serenade
09. Losing Myself [Edge Of Sanity cover]
10. Better Safe Than Sorry

For me, a good progressive album is one that makes you nostalgic for no reason, and Nightingale has captured that well.

The genre has a plethora of excellent albums, and it's difficult to stand out as the competition is rather tough, but this band has done pretty well. What stands out from the start is the melancholic style, even lugubrious at certain moments. Nightingale succeeds well in transmitting to us this desire for the past, for example in the track "Alonely", when Dan Swanö sings "If I could bring you back, If I had the power, I'd give you my world"; combined with the instrumental atmosphere that the band creates, it gives off the impression, and this is often the case in the album, that they are trying to help us with this feeling of abandonment. This is one of the greatest strengths of the album.

The vocals are well matched with the rest of the instruments; I don't really see any other voice than that of the legend Dan Swanö for this style. The guitar solos are also very effective; they are well laid out and go through the tracks like letters in the mail. The album is consistent and keeps itself fresh; this is something of a specialty of progressive metal, and this is not Swanö's first attempt, so perhaps it is not surprising.

A few tracks stand out from the crowd, like "Alonely", which is one of the most beautiful pieces of music on the album, or "Steal The Moon", which is a little more 'alive', if you can put it that way. All these elements make Nightfall Overture an intelligent listen, because you can listen to it while lounging as well as listening to it with attention.

The result is nice; however, what does not place the album among the best of the genre in my opinion is still the lack of surprise I had when listening to it. No passage in particular made me vibrate and at no time was I impressed by anything new, no new innovation that might have afforded the album a little more visibility in a genre that is probably the most innovative of all metal.

Finally, it's a rather successful album that brings back elements of more 'classic' progressive music, using them intelligently; however, it's not one of my favorites of the genre, as it's missing a little something to make it more memorable. Nevertheless, even if we are not facing the best project that Dan Swanö has produced, Nightfall Overture remains a success, one that is able to impose its atmosphere full of nostalgia on us.