Much of the same here for Finland's Afterworld, following their rather meager Connecting Animals debut (which sported one of the worst covers I've ever seen) with another slice of Euro Power Metal so derivative you might as well not listen to it. In fact, close your eyes and imagine it. You'd probably be spot on. Harmony guitars, cheap-sounding synths, double kick drum abuse, clean, melodic vocals – you know the score. So are they any good at it? Well, sort of.
The problem with this band is that they've always had bad singers. Mika Kuokkanen, the vocalist on Dark Side Of Mind, isn't a bad performer per se; you just can't understand what the hell he's saying. His delivery is stunted and muffled (much like the guy from Double Dealer, as it happens). Apart from that, the band turn in some stellar material, much of it sounding like a guitar-driven Stratovarius with plenty of Iron Maiden leads and some old Helloween thrown in. Most of the riffs you will have heard before, but where the band really shine is during their middle eights; you could actually forward through the first two minutes of every song and find a gem of a melody or arrangement. But with an absence of catchy choruses, songs like "Never Ending Sleep" and "The End Becomes" are just boring where they could have been great. The right ingredients are here; good musicianship, futuristic production. The band just miss the mark. Shame.
