Ryche-like
‘Manimal’ - No doubt named after the American (very) short lived Action/Fantasy/Adventure television series from the early eighties and was cancelled before the end of its first season. No good omens there, then. It was about a crime fighter who could morph into any animal - hawk, dolphin, snake etc
So is this what Manimals music is about? Do Manimal change musical direction with every song, thankfully not! Manimal's sound is hard, melodic with some progressive tendancies. The style is built around singer Samuel Nymens unique and sometimes irritating vocal sound. Think of a cross between Geoff Tate (Queensryche) not a bad comparison to make, and Tony Mills, ex-Shy and current TNT warbler, with a bit of Helloween, Stratovarius, Edguy and Mark Boals thrown in for good measure. Got the picture/sound in your head? Good.
This is Manimals first full length album even though they've been doing the rounds for the best part of eight years. They’ve been slowly building up a strong following in their native Scandinavia with some hard earned support slots touring with Mustasch, The poodles, Circus Maximus, and festival appearances at Sweden Rock and Metaltown. Producing the album is Tobias Lindell, known for his previous work with the fantastic Mustasch, and unfortunately doing himself no favours by producing the upcoming Europe album.
'Shadows' opens the show and it’s a promising listen. Immeditely I got infuences from Dream Theater, Judas Priest, with the closest resemblance being to prime 'Ryche era, only harder and riffier. It doesn’t stop there either. Manimal nail another rock icon in their song 'Spinegrinder'. A real Dio-esque number if ever I heard one. Title track 'The Darkest Hour' is not the best on offer but the songs are of a really decent calibre, to keep it up is difficult. If they could, it would be a new genre, Viagra Metal
'Living dead' comes over like very early Malmsteen's 'Seen the Light Tonight'. 'Ordinary Man' is one of the outstanding tracks on the album, more in line with metal prod such as Dream Theater or recent Symphony X, and a tad of Within Temptation’s ‘What Have You Done’ . Its also a bit of a break from the high vocal pitch that set my dog off! Until the bridge that is. Its all a pretty cool album to be honest with you. Prog metal seems to be very ‘in’ at the moment and this will fit into that genre quite nicely thank you. For fans of the Ryche, in particular