Winterstorm
Everfrost
AFM / Soulfood
Out: July 14th, 2023
Playing time: 51:00
The Power Metallers Winterstorm from Bayreuth (Bavaria / Germany) have been around since 2008. Between 2010 and 2016, four top-class albums were released, in fact every two years. But then it was over for a while. Fans had to wait a long time for new material – seven years, until July 2023, when the fifth album “Everfrost” was released. All ten songs on the album were written by the band’s founder and guitarist Michael Liewald. He is also responsible for the production and orchestration. The fine tuning was done at the Gates Studios in Wolfsburg (Avantasia, Rhapsody, among others).
In my opinion, the Bavarians overdo it a bit with the intro “Origin”. Almost two and a half minutes for this meaningless sound play with chanting seems to me to be a waste of space on the album. But with “To The End Of All Known” they try to compensate for this lapse. After a very short industrial introduction, things really get going. Slamming riffs underpinned by Symphonic Bombast. Alexander Schirmer’s voice is slightly scratchy. “The Phoenix Died (Remember)” starts with acoustic sounding guitars. The heavy-metal riffs are somewhat taken away from the harshness in the midtempo song. The epic choruses are very good. “Circle Of Greed” is also very melodic but played a bit faster. “Future Times” starts balladesque, before the riffs put the stamp on the song here as well. The title track “Everfrost” is a catchy Power Metal song, in which the band again goes at a high tempo. This is followed seamlessly by “Final Journey”. The musicians also go full throttle with “Fate Of The Atlanteans”. Once again, catchy melodies paired with hard riffs can be heard (“Crusade”). The tempo of the vocals is reduced a little. Instead, epic choruses were built in again. After the powerful “Overcome The Fear” with its many riffs, the piano-heavy “Silence” closes the album. And contrary to what the title might suggest, this is not a ballad.
Winterstorm have certainly not reinvented Power Metal. They move in the well-known paths of this genre. But they do it very confidently, apart from the intro, which in my opinion is dispensable. But this can’t spoil the positive overall impression.
Winterstorm – To The End Of All Known: https://youtu.be/kVZFWFQYoOU
Lineup:
Alexander Schirmer – Vocals
Jochen Windisch – Guitar
Michael Liewald – Guitar
Peter Cerveny – Bass
Jonas Hack – Drums
Track list:
- Origin
- To the End of All Known
- The Phoenix Died (Remember)
- Circle of Greed
- Future Times
- Everfrost
- Final Journey
- Fate of the Atlanteans
- Crusade
- Overcome the Fear
- Silence
Rating:
Album : 8/10
Cover-Art : 8/10
Songwriting : 9/10
