I got this album around when it was released, but I found it boring. Well, I got rid of it and a year later Masterplan released their debut album. Jørn Lande impressed me so much I hunted 'The Spectral...' down again.

I still wonder why, because this album is still just as boring as the first time around. Mundanus Imperium performed slightly prog-ish dark metal not too far from Covenant's 'Nexus Polaris' (1998), which I found very interesting back when it was released. Mundanus Imperium's compositions include influences from classical music as well. Guitar riffs are simply forgettable and the music is driven by keyboards, which are on the brink of falling into "toy" category. Powerless and unbalanced production doesn't do any favors to this kind of music, which should sound epic. Jørn Lande sounds powerful and good (though far from truly skillful singer he is today), but his vocals lines do not fit too well with the music, thanks to his wandering. The music is mostly very uneventful and the best songs are piano-driven instrumental 'Beyond the Earthly' with its catchy melodies, happy piece 'Starwars' (totally different to other Mundanus Imperium songs here) and Rainbow cover 'Stargazer', which is okay and made me check out Rainbow ('Stargazer' being their best song IMO).

This time around space theme doesn't excite me. I can't understand what lyrics are trying to say. Cover art is nice all around, especially four different phases of planet's surface pictured in booklet. Music should not picture slowly happening processes of space real-time, because that's what Mundanus Imperium seemed to be doing. What a boring album.

Rating: 3- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
03/09/2005 14:37