Description

Digipack with two bonus tracks

Their 2011 self titled album was quite successful for a newcomer band. The Danish / Swedish band delivers the second album with a lot of great melodic metal, a good portion Power Metal including Keyboards, some Metalcore, catchy choruses and a lot of melodies. Their songs for three voices (growls, clean singer and a female singer) combined with powerful and driving guitar riffs makes this band unique. If you dont like the bands debut album and have written them off as the ABBA of pop metal then The Nexus want change your mind. If you liked their debut then this will definitely please you because to be honest not much has changed since on their sophomore release. Amaranthe has find their sound and they know what they want to do with it, so the only thing left is to play to their strengths and crank everything up to 11. The choruses are catchier, the tempos are more upbeat and groovy, the vocalists are more front-and-center, the keys are more Mega Man-ish, and the metal parts seem a little more vicious (to a certain extent). This is obvious from the second the disc opens with “Afterlife”. If you missed the band’s first single “The Nexus”, it’s also a pretty good representation of what you can expect to find here. Elize’s vocals are again the showcase, and she can easily shame most commercially successful female vocalists with her charisma and charm. The guitar riffing is here, but most of it feels like background and is relatively simplistic considering the talent involved but they do pull out a fancy little solo every once in a while for good measure. On the heavier side of things (I know, I know, it’s not that heavy), you can check out “Electroheart” or “Razorblade” in addition to the already mentioned opener. And for those looking for this album’s “Amaranthine”, “Burn With Me” should do the trick. Bottom line here: If you enjoyed their first disc, The Nexus gives you more of what you are looking for. If you didn’t like the band before, this one isn’t going to win you over either.

Track listing:
1. Afterlife
2. Invincible
3. The Nexus
4. Theory of Everything
5. Stardust
6. Burn With Me
7. Mechanical Illusion
8. Razorblade
9. Future On Hold
10. Electroheart
11. Transhuman
12. Infinity
13. Afterlife-acoustic version
14. Leave Everything Behind-early version