(Progressive Metal) [CD] Vanden Plas - Chronicles of the Immortals: Netherworld (Path 1) - (Limited Digipak) - 2014, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Consistency and stability are not typically the first two traits people think of when they hear the term progressive metal. If you add Christianity to that, many will would say that no such band exists. For a band whose debut was nearly 20 years ago Vanden Plas remain one of the only bands that I can name that have never had a single lineup change. This consistency is possibly part of the reason why their albums seem to have a certain flow to them and there hasn't been any drastic experimentation with rapping, sampling, dubstep, nu-metal, or a plethora of the other things that many of the big named progressive metal bands have tried in the past or are continuing to attempt. In my honest opinion, Vanden Plas is a truly unique gem in the prog metal rough that for some reason has yet to really get the credit they deserve for remaining true to themselves.

Another factor that bands have to deal with is the amount of time between their albums. Often having a 3 or 4 year gap between albums can come out extremely refreshing and a candidate for one of the best albums of the year, other times a band truly is out of ideas and by the time a mediocre albums comes out their fanbase has already forgotten about them forcing many of them to reevaluate their career choices. With Vanden Plas we have seen that these breaks between albums have always managed to keep them fresh sounding, considering each album typically has a 3 to 4 year gap in between. With the Seraphic Clockwork in 2010, we saw Vanden Plas continuing with their dark, yet religious and conceptual brand of progressive metal, with the eerie yet the melodic vocals of Andy Kuntz along with rather clean guitar parts and complex keyboards. When I heard that they would be releasing what appears to be a two part album early in 2014 called Chronicles of the Immortals: Neverworld (Path 1), I was extremely excited and was expecting it to be one of the best albums I am going to hear in the entire year.

From the first track you can tell that the album is split up into 10 different visions dealing with the apocalyptic battle between heaven and hell. The protagonist of the story has to decide which side he should follow based on his visions. This already sounds like a great concept for an album, considering Vanden Plas has been more than capable of taking religious subject matter and convey it without coming off as overly cheesy as many other bands do. The rest of the first track 1ne is basically just piano and some vocals. The idea of this opener was obviously just to explain the concept of the album, as over half of it is spoken word.

The Black Knight starts off with some distorted riffs on top of Andy's trademark and easily recognizable melodic vocals. The track seems like its a debate on the topic of where we all go after we die, which always hits most people a little close to home, add an extremely emotional guitar solo halfway through the track and you already have a continuation of what Vanden Plas has been known for the past 20 years. The piano leads towards the end are absolutely beautiful and it leads back into the same guitar riff and spends the last half minute or so with light children's choir vocals fading out into the next song.

Godmaker, which is the single and video off of the album starts off pretty heavy with a relatively harsh and headbangable guitar riff. This song easily sets a high standard for the rest of the album. From first listen its extremely memorable, once again has an extremely clean and emotional guitar solo, within the last 30 seconds Andy hits some of the highest vocals I have ever heard him sing, and once again fades out to some very beautiful unaccompanied piano. It is almost very easy to admit that this is one of the strongest tracks on the album.

The fifth vision, entitled A Ghost's Requiem is a piano ballad which begins with very dainty sounding female vocals which is then accompanied by church choir vocals. It takes about 3 minutes to get to any of Andy's vocals and an additional 30 seconds before any other instruments are added. Honestly this isn't a bad song, but for me it takes way too long to build up and when it does it is for a very short amount of time, which in the end kind of leaves one unsatisfied by it.

The opening riff to New Vampyre is rather confusing. It comes off being a little bit too distorted, and with the out the keyboards or vocals you could almost mistake the song for that of a nu-metal band. Later on in the track is some slow and clean guitar leads along with piano, which returns to the trademark sound that Vanden Plas has always had. Around the four minute mark starts the signs of why the band is progressive metal band, keyboard solo mixed with many time changes and much more complex guitar riffs. For a track that starts off relatively bland it ends up becoming one of the better tracks on the album about halfway through.

The King and the Children of lost world starts off with lots of progressive intensity. There isn't an over use of distortion and focuses more on the complexity of the composition and the melody of Kuntz's vocals. This is easily one of the most upbeat tracks on the album and probably has one of the most memorable choruses. An addition of extra backing vocals is a very nice touch to give the singing a slightly more bombastic sound, which has always been something I can appreciate. The track also has what I would consider the best and most melodic guitar solo on the entire album. This would probably be my favorite track, definitely has a lot to offer in 8 minutes.

If you would like a synopsis of Misery Affection you can pretty much read my complaints about A Ghost's Requiem. It takes almost 4 minutes to kick in and once it does doesn't have much to offer. This is probably the most uninteresting track on the album, which was unexpected seeing as how the fourth track is a prelude to it. A lot of anticipation was built up and it just failed to deliver to me personally. I feel that its intention is more as a part to develop a story line as opposed to being an actual song. Its not horrible, I was just expecting more.

I had previously mentioned that Vanden Plas hadn't experiment a whole lot in their past, but the guitar riffs halfway through Soul Alliance definitely have a more modern edge to them. They are pretty distorted and chug-ish, but with the piano accompanying it its honestly not too bothersome. The keyboards at the end of the track are probably one of the better parts of the song, but Gunter Werno has always been one of my personal favorite keyboardists and have never been disappointed by any of his compositions. This in my opinion is not one of the better tracks, but it still definitely has memorable parts and for the most part sticks to a sound people would come to expect from the band.

The last track on the album doesn't take long at all to get started, which is a relief considering many concept albums' last track take forever to get started to try to build a more epic feel. There is a relatively brief piano intro and barely a minute into Inside there is a very complex and emotional guitar solo, probably one of the best on the album. Around the five minute mark there is some violin parts follow by yet another guitar solo with twin lead parts, which continues on into a rather full and epic fade on. This would definitely be the perfect track to end the album on. I can almost feel like I am on the front line of the battle between good and evil by the end of this.

All in all I would say Chronicles of the Immortals: Neverworld (Part 1) is an excellent concept album. Of course it has its sleeper tracks and a couple used to build onto others later on in the album, but there are almost no progressive metal concept albums that don't do the exact same thing. I honestly got what I expected out of this album, and that is to be extremely impressed and to continue to not ever be disappointed by any of Vanden Plas' work. The band has found their little niche in the progressive metal world, and they are perfectly fine with sticking to it, as am I. I can't wait a few more years to see how they are going to follow this album up.

I am going to write off a couple tracks that seem to be more or less used to create atmosphere and build plot lines when deciding what to rate it. There are really no songs that are unlistenable, although some are obviously better than others. The guitar solos are incredible, the keyboards are fantastic, and the vocals continue to be some of my favorites from the entire genre. I'd give this a rating of 4/5, or about an 90% if you break it down into percentages. This probably will easily find its way into my top ten albums of 2014 list.

Review written by PowerProg_Adam for www.metal-archives.com

Andy Kuntz - Vocals
Torsten Reichert - Bass
Andreas Lill - Drums
Stephan Lill - Guitars
Günter Werno - Keyboards