Album review: VANISHING POINT – Distant Is The Sun

AFM Records www.afmrecords.de

Another German metal band you might think…but no…Vanishing Point are Australian, they play progressive metal and this is their fifth studio album and the first since The Fourth Season back in 2007.

The band has been lead since 1998 by Silvio Massaro on vocals and Chris Porcianko on guitar but the departure of founding member Tommy Vucur in 2010 threw the band into turmoil and it is not until now that the follow up to the aforementioned The Fourth Season is ready to be released.

Distant is the Sun throws all of the right shapes and most, but not all of them, stick. If I mention Dream Theater, Vanden Plas, Magnitude 9, Threshold, Sonata Arctica, Helloween then you should have a fair idea of what to expect here.

The tracks…well Beyond Redemption opens things with a neat piano intro before the wall of guitar and drums of King of Empty Promises kicks in, title track Distant is the Sun has that sing-along chorus, Circle of Fire features guest vocals from Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica fame. Mentions also deserved for the almost Empire-era Queensrӱche sounding Let The River Run with its opening vocal harmonies and the atmospheric Story of Misery. The acoustic instrumental April wraps things up nicely.

Nothing outstays it’s welcome but a few tracks seem to go nowhere…step forward Denied Deliverance. The biography, for some reason, doesn’t credit a keyboard player but there is an awful lot of piano/keyboard on here…and it adds to each and every number.

Nothing that you haven’t heard before…but you probably haven’t heard it from a band from Down Under. Lacking that killer touch but still worthy of a few spins…and then maybe a few more…

**** Review by Phil Berisford

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)