'Karma' is Kamelot's fifth studio recording, and without doubt, the most impressing yet.

Karma starts of with classical intro (of course! Could any of these kind of bands try something else sometime? Falconer didn't have intro at all, and got 9½ out of 10 from me!).

After the intro, bombastically glorious melodies begin to tickle listener's ears. 'Forever' kicks off the album, and what a glorious melody it has! Unbelievably beautiful guitar line here! Unfortunately it's stolen from Grieg's 'Peer Gynt', and very sadly the boys forgot to mention that on the liner notes. There's nothing wrong covering great compositions, but it would be wise to mention that on the liner notes! At least if you want to keep your credibility...

But after that, less familiar melodies continue to tickle on. And when I got over 'Don't You Cry', the title track finally made me to grab my air-guitar once again and bang my head onto it. Not too fast, very powerful riffing here. And after that even better 'The Light I Shine on You'! Oh yeah! Now these knights of the round table have finally found their best sides to make stylish melodic power metal as I've waited from them.

Lyrically 'Karma' doesn't make much surprises. Very typical power metal lyrics about love after death and flying across the highlands. Only the closing chapter, telling the story about countess Bathory, irritates me. I had enough of her while listening Venom back in 1984. But I'm very happy to close my ears from lyrics on that song, because musically it's one of the best songs I've heard in a long time.

'Karma' was recorded at Gate Studio, under supervision of Sascha Paeth and Miro. That's about all you need to know, if you're into power metal. For a little explanation for those who are not, I can say that Gate studio is number one power metal factory. Always deep, warm, pure sounds. No mistakes made there, at least not with Sascha.

Khan on vocals sounds better all the time. Only when he sings his "beautiful" high notes, he sound a bit like Finnish Formula 1 hero Kimi Räikkönen. But fortunately he doesn't do it very often. I've heard somebody saying that his singing was lot better with Conception. Yes, at least it was rougher, but I think that he has improved a lot since those days. His voice is much deeper and mature. And he doesn't make those Kimi sounds so often anymore!

Those sweet echoes from F1 world are only heard on poor, poor ballad 'Don't You Cry', which is the low point of 'Karma' without a doubt. Is there some kind of a law that you have to put one ballad on each power metal album, even if you haven't got any touch to write one? Or at least your singer hasn't got a clue how to sing it.

Very rarely when you have great expectations from a record you've waited for, they come true. In my case 'Karma' has got veeery close. Without the Grieg rip-off and crying vocal parts on 'Don't You Cry' this one would have been near 10 out of ten. But it's always good to have something to improve and give fans like me a little hope that they could do even better next time!

Rating: 9 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Mikki
08/17/2001 15:38