Four new albums just landed on the doorstep from Lion Music (www.lionmusic.com) and this is the first one up for a battering. Winterlong offer this their third album and it’s a pleasant surprise. Whilst the band are technically no more, guitarist Thorbjorn England has become a multi-instrumentalist and singer and decided to release “Metal/Technology” under the Winterlong banner. Looking at www.winterlong.org for a bit of background, it appears to be England's first foray into the vocal arena and on the opening track “The Hunter” he manages to layer some vocal harmony and sounds remarkably like U.D.O./Accept frontman Udo Dirkschneider, it’s also immediately obvious that he’s no slouch on the guitar front. Further investigation reveals that the albums he’s been involved with in the past have been more in the Neo-classical/Power Metal vein and he’s made a serious attempt to mix things up a bit on this new release. 

Whilst attempting to move in a more modern direction, England has managed to avoid making the album a vehicle for his fret board talents, he has blended some incredibly tasteful shred moments with a super heavy collection of guitar riffs, layers of keys, differing vocal styles and some almost dance inspired drum parts. A kind of mixture in the style of NIN meets Nightwish meets Hammerfall meets classic and power metal, which might at first sound like one hell of a musical soup, but works really well.  

The ten tracks on offer are a well thought out blend and offer a shade less the forty minutes in total, which in essence is short and sweet. When he does let rip in full Malmsteen mode, England's playing is utterly superb, demonstrated beautifully on “Cleaning The Machine” and “Shouting Out The World”, to me the stand out tracks on the album. What is to England's credit is his restraint with the guitar, the shredding element is there to make a statement on the odd track and doesn’t feature throughout, he could easily have made this just another tech-head album and disappeared up his own arse. Introducing the Nightwish/Within Temptation inspired female vocal backing lines on “And So We Remember” takes the album in a different direction, which is key to holding the listeners attention. In fact my attention was held so well, I want to hear more and that is an added plus, giving the impression that England hasn’t fired all his ammo in one foray.  

This is a reasonably fresh approach to rock music and gives me the impression that the material would translate well to the stage and in the ideal world I’d like to see a version of the band in this country. “Metal/Technology” will take some removing from my CD player, that’s for sure.

Let us know your views on 'Metal/Technology'

Track List

The Hunter
Aand So We Remember
Go To Hell
My Nevermore
Like Ships In The Night
Shutting Out The World
On A Demon's Night
The Touch of Evil
Cleaning The Machine
Badlands