Epysode – Obsessions

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AFM Records
Produced by Samuel Arkan

The multi-singer concept album is one that continues to gain interest in the metal community. Whilst not a new idea, the continued popularity of Ayreon and Avantasia, as well as technology making it far easier to make such an album, has led to more creators following this template. Whilst some of these acts certainly pursue other areas of the metal genre (such as Necronaut and MaYaN in the death metal field), concept act Epysode will certainly draw more direct comparisons with Ayreon and Avantasia, playing in the same field of progressive power metal.

The concept of their debut Obsessions sounds rather like ‘Twin Peaks’, albeit without the dodgy filler material and with a more concise, straight-forward story. Kallon (Kelly “Sundown” Carpenter from Beyond Twilight/Darkology) is a detective looking into the kidnapping of a child and the murder of his parents. Unknown to him, the killer is possessed by the evil spirit Yae (Communic singer Oddleif Stensland), who has been committing these kinds of crimes for years. Good spirit Esh (Beautiful Sin/Virus IV singer Magali Luyten) contacts Kallon through the good ol’ cliché of a message in a steamed up mirror, which gets spiritual medium and (conveniently) Kallon’s childhood friend Valma (Liselotte ‘Lilo’ Hegt, probably best known for guesting on Ayreon’s 01011001) involved. After enlisting the help of other good spirit Maymos (Rick Altzi of At Vance and Thunderstone), they go and confront the villain. There’s drama, there’s sacrifice, there’s hilariously over the top voice-acting/dialogue and some great, Pagan’s Mind-esque prog-power metal. What more do you want?

Okay, so concept aside, the songs themselves and the performance of said songs are what is important, and without that the album falls apart. Epysode mastermind Samuel Arkan’s Virus IV were rather disappointing with their debut Dark Sun, but thankfully, Obsessions is a massive improvement. The songs themselves are suitably overblown and dramatic, but don’t forget that at the end of the day they need to work as individual songs. Taken out of context, an anthemic masterpiece like Invisible Nations still works incredibly well. It can exist happily as a disconnected, five minute blast of pure rock. Others don’t work quite so well outside of said context (Villain song Fallen’s Portrait being a good example, mostly because of the voice-acted interlude), but the lyrics still have enough poetry to them that they don’t sound forced into a concept – a real problem with a lot of Arjen Lucassen’s work.

As for the performances themselves, the band are strong, easily matching that of their peers, though naturally it is the vocal performances that will provoke most interest. The singers themselves are slightly more uneven, but at least run from decent through to excellent, rather than bad to excellent. Liselotte Hegt just seems so uninteresting when compared to the consistently fantastic and charismatic Magali Luyten. Kelly Sundown suffers the same when compared to Rick Altzi, whose powerful performance should really bring more interest to his work for his other projects. It isn’t to say that either Kelly or Liselotte are poor – both do a good job, but the ‘spirit singers’ just have more character to their performances. As for Oddleif Stensland, he is consistently good as you may expect, and indeed continues to have a bit of Warrel Dane in his delivery. This makes him really work as the villain of the cast.

Some of this album is indeed a bit hammy, especially the occasional bites of voice-acting – Oddleif Stensland’s villainous character couldn’t be anymore overplayed. But at the same time the album is not overwhelmed by pretension, and is a very accessible story married with very accessible progressive-power metal tunes. Epysode might not have the superstar performers that Ayreon and Avantasia bring in, but the performances and writing should more than meet their standards, whilst avoiding some of their reoccurring pitfalls. Hopefully Obsessions will become the first ‘Epysode’ of many.

“ suitably overblown and dramatic ”

Tracklist: File 4180-1 / Silences of Dawn / First Blood / Obsessions / Invisible Nations / Gemini Syndrome / Fallen’s Portrait / Season of Redemption / The Other Side / The Shadow Lord / One Chance / Divine Whispers / March of the Ghosts / Last Sunset

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Progressive, Epysode