Album Review: Evergrey – A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament)
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
Evergrey are a band that I find difficult to have an impartial opinion on seeing as they are a band that mean a great deal to me. A band that for nearly thirty years had perfectly merged melancholic melody, heartbreaking emotion and out and out heaviness together in perfect unison. They are one of my go to bands when I’m feeling a bit down and they always manage to pick me back up so you could say that a new Evergrey album is a big deal for me. The band have been on an insane run of albums since Hymns For The Broken in 2014 releasing some of the best material of their career and with this album coming so soon after the release of previous album Escape Of The Phoenix there was the worry that this album will be the one to break the purple patch. Thankfully after listening to A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament) I can say any worries about this album have been swept aside as this is another stunner from the band.
On their thirteenth full length album Evergrey fire up the arsenal of what has made their last few albums such brilliant pieces of dark melodic metal but Evergrey have condensed their winning formula into sharper, more concise, far catchier and much heavier songs. Two of the lead singles off the album - Save Us and Midwinter Calls - see Evergrey fire out driving riffs, irresistible melodies and gargantuan hooks all swathed in their trademark darkness. The title track works much the same with one of the heaviest riffs on the album whilst Call Out The Dark is one of the hookiest songs the band have ever released with a chorus that is going to stick in your head for days after and is guaranteed to be a real crowd pleaser when these songs are performed live.
The Great Unwashed is another belter seeping with pure emotion and containing one of the all time best guitar solos from Henrik Danhage whilst album closer Wildfires sees the band brings things right down with delicate acoustic guitars, beautifully atmospheric keys from Rikard Zander and absolutely heart-wrenching vocals from frontman Thomas Englund. It’s a song that comes close to what Tom is doing with his Silent Skies side project (well worth checking out if you want the emotion of Evergrey without the metal part of the sound).
With this being the thirteenth album from the band, the band knows what works in their sound and the whole album has a maturity and confidence of a band that knows it is bringing their “A” game. Many of the songs on here are certain to be deemed Evergrey classics in the near future and I cannot wait to hear them plus material from their last album when they finally get to tour the U.K. in September. Evergrey’s purple patch shows no signs of coming to an end anytime soon and A Heartless Portrait (The Orphean Testament) is up there with some of the finest material the band has released. Highly recommended for those who want pure emotion with their riffs.
