NEW DISCOVERY (E)

To my knowledge, New Discovery is the sixth album by Artension, the all star band featuring the voice of John West (Royal Hunt), virtuoso keyboardist Vitalij Kuprij (solo, ex-Ring Of Fire), co-founder Roger Staffelbach (guitars) and Mike Terrana (Axel Rudi Pell, Rage) on drums and Kevin Chown (Magnitude 9, Tiles) on bass. What's new? Nothing really, it resembles the previous albums like Sacred Pathways very much. Artension provides us with superb, melodic symphonic metal in the vein of Yngwie Malmsteen and Symphony X, a band that is also inspired by the well-known classical composers. With Artension, the synthesizers are dominating the music where most bands in this genre have the guitars playing the solos in the vast majority. Hammering double bass drums, extraordinary skillful keyboard playing and very powerful guitar and bass. To my surprise John West's voice seems somewhat less powerful. Multiple overdubs cover up quite well, but I don't like the way the vocals have been mixed. The first four tracks are up tempo, then the mid-tempo Hearts Are Broken followed by a piece taken from a classical composer, namely the instrumental Symphonic Expedition. Endless Days is not a very original but nevertheless a beautiful ballad. An ode to Deep Purple and Rainbow in Call Of The Wild and speeding up again for the finale in Story Teller. The last track is a radio edit from Endless Days. Although the track list doesn't mention it nor the info on the website of Frontiers Records, track 11 is another classical, instrumental keyboard piece. In spite of the lack of originality New Discovery is well-worth buying because of the masterly instrumentation on it and for its maturity.