Description
Double album on black vinyls with gatefold cover
Formed in 1999, Swedish progressive metal band Andromeda hails from the southernmost city of Malmö and centers around virtuoso guitar player Johan Reinholdz. Also featuring keyboardist Martin Hedin, bassist Gert Dunn, and drummer Thomas Lejon, Andromeda had no trouble securing a record deal with WAR Music on the strength of their very first demo, but holding onto a vocalist proved a tad more challenging. In fact, the band found itself in need of a singer on the eve of starting recording on their 2001 debut album, Extension of the Wish. As an emergency measure, they called upon Darkane vocalist Lawrence Mackrory to lend a hand — and came away with surprisingly positive results, it must be said. The album got the band signed to Century Media and they debut was re-released immediately. A permanent frontman, David Fremberg, was brought in before the sophomore ‘II = I’, which took the band on the whole different level, and in such an impetuous way that you might as well at first dismiss this release as the grossest amount of wankery you have ever heard. And not to say that it isn’t, since some passages on here would indeed only make sense to a sadomasochistic guitar-playing onanist, but if it weren’t for the ‘Extention Of The Wish’ and its misleading and hefty expectations ‘II=I’ would probably be in the league of its own. There are no straight-to-the-point compositions except for maybe the keyboard-dominated ‘Castaway’, so this won’t be easy listening – never mind easy likening. For the most part, this is a guitar-based album, with Johan Reinholtz at his best spewing up his masturbatory melodies with unbelievably diverse technical proficiency. His numerous riffs and solos still give this album a very metallish feel, though this is definitely not (entirely) riff-based music. The keyboardist Martin Hedin doesn’t lag behind either, complimenting with his sometimes wavy and fluctuating-soothing piano tracks, very reminiscent of Genesis’s Tony Banks. Either way, if you’re a real prog fan, you should definitely give it a listen -however, it’s not mandatory for you to like it at all. Johan said that the band will accentuate more on the songs rather than flashiness on the next album, so this release might be somewhat of an once-in-a-lifetime effort for Andromeda, making it even much more valuable and unique.
Track listing:
1. Encyclopedia
2. Mirages
3. Reaching Deep Within
4. Two Is One
5. Morphing Into Nothing
6. Castaway
7. Parasite
8. One In My Head
9. This Fragile Surface
10. Album commentary by Johan And Martin