Skyfire – Esoteric (2009)

Five years have passed after their acclaimed album “Spectral” was released and with a re-vamped lineup the band is back to blow everybody away with “Esoteric”. This Swedish band has managed to live up to the hype, and even surpass expectations with their new album.

Simply put “Esoteric” is a brilliant album that features a very fresh mix of Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Metal that will put most bands that fuse these genres to shame. I’m a sucker for anything that is melodic in nature and this album is close to my dreams of the best combination of melody and aggressiveness with tons of more elements thrown in between.

Skyfire’s brand of Melodic/Progressive Death Metal is something that is very rare these days since they manage to equally balance both genres to perfection and throwing in to the mix extremely elaborated symphonic synth arrangements they managed to hit the jackpot of musical brilliance.

“Esoteric” features 11 tracks of musical excellence, from start to end you will be enjoying every little detail this album has to offer. The super production showcases every single instrument to perfection and mixes them together in perfect harmony. The band has amazing composing skills and brings them to life in a very easy listening but technically complex way.

The guitar melodies are top notch and the solos just add to the richness of their sound. The drumming is very compact and precise marking all the emotional changes of the album to perfection. Vocal wise the band is pretty solid and the growls, courtesy of new singer Joakim Karlsson, are pretty uniform through out the whole album. What I like the most is the vocal arrangements that the band throws in here and there, using choirs, makes the whole music go to a different level. But the element that is more impressive to me is the lush synth atmospheres that are very generous through the whole album. Also the piano parts help provide the needed emotion to some passages on the songs.

Putting everything together you get an extremely rich sounding tapestry of elements that many bands are known for, but none have managed to fuse in this brilliant way. There are even some parts that sound very Dream Theater like (expect for the terrible singing of James LaBrie).

Overall a very solid album that will make it into the top 10 of the year lists of many people and many magazines on this 2009, so you better not miss this one, since it will be the standard many other bands will be judged in the future.

Release: October 13, 2009

Country: Sweden