There’s a spoken-word piece at the start of “Architects Of A New Weave” that talks about “where chaos meets order”, and I’ve always thought there was a bit of that with Evergrey.
Their music has always felt like two worlds colliding. Too dark for power metal, too power metal to be lumped in with the other kings of melancholia, Katatonia and the like. They have always existed somewhere between the two, and somehow made that hinterland entirely their own.
Not that they care. “Architects Of A New Weave” is their 15th album in almost 30 years, and as it is co-produced by main man Tom S. Englund — the one constant who has piloted the band since 1993 — you can rest assured this is their vision.
Which is to say, it is utterly sensational.
After the intro, “The Shadow Self” finds Englund offering: “I thought I was healing.” It is classic Evergrey, really: massive, melodic, wounded and searching for something just out of reach.
The title track is as heavy as you would expect from a band opening for Maiden, but the keyboard line takes it somewhere new, and it needs to be said that the guitar work is phenomenal. New boy Stephen Platt has fitted in perfectly here.
“The World Is On Fire” sounds enormous, but it has a soaring, almost arena-rock flavour too. The yin and the yang. Those two worlds, if you will.
And speaking of soaring, “Heaven” goes stratospheric. There is some brilliant twin guitar work before the lead bursts out, and it all has the feeling of a band utterly in command of its craft.
There is always sadness at the heart of Evergrey, and nowhere is that better shown than on “The Script”. It is bleak, beautiful and built with the kind of emotional weight that few bands in this sphere can truly manage.
By comparison, “Leaving The Emptiness” feels like light at the end of the tunnel, and is more of a straight-ahead rocker. “Longing” takes us down a more balladic road, and there are modern metal bands all over the place who could take this as a lesson. It builds and builds to a genuinely wonderful crescendo.
Mikael Stanne — singer for bands like The Halo Effect and Cemetery Skyline — guests on “A Burning Flame”, the last single released from the album, and it is a cracker. It fair old fizzes along, with all the urgency and class you would expect from that pairing.
“Call Off Your Lions”, one of the longest tracks here, appears to be written with a stream-of-consciousness feel, but it has the natural heft that this album thrives on.
And there are no let-ups as it rolls on. This feels like a complete body of work, one that almost demands to be listened to in full. Whether that is “Chains Of Shame” or the closing “The Prophecy”, which amounts to an overture to finish, this is an album with shape, scope and purpose.
Indeed, “The Prophecy” seems to end on a brighter note, offering hope for a better future. “It feels like the night has left,” sings Englund, and after all the darkness that has come before, that line feels earned.
What it does, above all, is close a record that is genuinely incredible. On “Architects Of A New Weave”, Evergrey have built something truly special.
RATING 9.5/10
