Album review : EDGE OF PARADISE – Hologram

Frontiers [Release date: 14.07.23]

Fresh off a ten date US tour with Lacuna Coil, Edge Of Paradise release Hologram, their fifth album, their third on Frontiers.

The band is a duo comprising of Armenian/ Russian/ American singer, Margarita Monet, and American guitarist and songwriter, Dave Bates.

When we reviewed the band’s previous album, The Unknown (2020), we noted that it was produced by famed studio helmsman, Howard Benson.

The production here is again calculatedly crisp and sonically clear, so we’re guessing it’s Benson once more.

This new recording is filled to the brim and indeed, overflowing with the kind of impassioned Symphonic Metal that demands a big canvas, with the band frequently reaching for the epic and sometimes the overblown.

Monet’s half spoken, yet animated vocals, on ‘Hologram’ the opening track, threads its way through the track’s fantastical arrangements as the band and producer seek new ways of creating aural landscapes.

Her multi-octave voice is gloriously hypnotic and theatrical, particularly impressive on ‘Soldiers Of Danger’s densely constructed power metal, the soundtrack to dramatic events we will hopefully never see.

In the end it’s that vocal range that carries the day. Her breathy, sensuous, Kate Bush like vocals has ‘Faceless’ sounding much like a gothic ghost story distilled into four and half minutes of symphonic metal.

But the real standout is ‘Dark’, a slow burning, classically shaped opus that rolls out like a sinister nursery rhyme. It cuts against the grain of the symphonic power metal of the surrounding tracks and that, on its own, makes it different. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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THE PLAGUE What Else Can I Do (FiXT)
STAR CIRCUS Turn The Tide (indie)
DEFENCES Breathe It In (Long Branch Records)

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12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023 (Melodic Hard Rock)
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