The Enchanted's melting pot of include various styles of metal, but the mixture is heavily made of more brutal and dark styles such as death, thrash and even black metal. There is nothing too modern in the band's music, which gives this a melancholic feel of yesterdays, time bygone.

'Where Fires Burn' is a mixture of blasting pagan/war metal song and neoclassical style slower part. That slow part's drumming, which sounds improvised, is a nice touch with repeating the same melody. One main problems of the release raises its ugly heads already on the opener: The structural vagueness is prominent, as it feels like it's a different part after each part style composition work, with no anchors to cling to. 'Way of the Warrior' is more darker, but misses that "inspiring improvisation" bit. Some okay riffing and lively drumming does not hide the monotony, and them guitar solos are simply dire. 'In a Dream of Waters Deep' hits in a higher gear, being the most energetic piece of thrashing mayhem here, thanks to slower, hammering pace (well, it contains some blast beats, too), but also to catchier building pieces comparing to the two first songs. As it usually happens to me, "more speed" doesn't mean "more balls".

Lastly, the old demo song 'Under the Hall of the Moon' makes a nice comeback. Epic closer should appeal to warrior metal fans in general for sure. It is made of true British steel, roaming in same spheres as Forefather. The clear vocals and weeping guitars have similar despair in them as older Anathema. There's no more female vocals this time, but who needs 'em, because there's more nuances otherwise? The song is totally different compared to new material, which is more barbaric and sadly, also more generic.

The production job sounds rushed. It works to some extent, since it retains rawness and live vibe. On the other hand, balancing of the instruments and vocals isn't very good at all and lower frequencies get muddy. But there's just two guitars, a bass and drums. Two lead vocals backed up by two backing vocalists surely give variety to vocals department. From more brutal grunts to clean ones to demonized voices to booze gang vocals. Lyrics are about evil, battle and pagan stuff.

All songs except 'Way of the Warrior' are okay to good, but none of the remaining three manage to be excellent, even though 'In a Dream...' comes close with its 1980s style thrash vibe, and the closer is a beautiful one, but so different to others. This feels like a hurtled spear without target, sadly.

Rating: 6 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/08/2004 19:40