Album Review: Brainstorm - Midnight Ghost

This has been another slow year for power metal. Like the last few, there hasn't been much on the scene that has caught my attention. Either the music has been in the mold of the Helloween rehashers, or it hasn't had the sharp songwriting to overcome the limitations of the genre. Powerwolf put out a great record, but they are the exception to the trend. Brainstorm has something in their corner this time around, producer Seeb Levermann of Orden Ogan fame. His band is one of the few consistently delivering modern power metal that excels, so there is hope that he can steer Brainstorm in a direction that is more enthralling than usual.

His influence is felt early on. "Devil's Eye" opens things with a thrashing riff that chugs along not unlike an Orden Ogan song, but the chorus has deeply layered backing vocals that sound exactly like what Seeb would do with his own group. That massive quality is one of the things that makes them stand out, and it has always worked to make the music sound larger than life. Let's face it; most power metal doesn't have interesting guitar parts, which puts all of the emphasis on the hooks to compel the listener. Making the choruses sound bigger and bigger is one of the tricks that serves to do just that. If they went Iron Maiden style, and went without background vocals at all, this material would sound much flatter than it does. Production does matter.

The other thing that matters is consistency. Even if you can deliver a killer track or two to serve as the highlights, the mark of an album is how deep you can go before you hit filler. That is where Brainstorm has elevated their game. While I am not intimately familiar with their catalog, I've heard enough bits and pieces from them to be able to say this is easily the best they've ever sounded. Sure, it could just be my bias because I am quite fond of Orden Ogan, so any move in that direction would be considered a good thing. Regardless of why, Brainstorm sounds bigger and more engaging than I remember.

If you happened to hear the single, "The Pyre", it doesn't give an accurate representation of what the rest of the record has to offer. That track was released perhaps because it was a bit more traditional, but I find it to be one of the lesser offerings, lacking the immediate hooks that the best tracks here boast. "Ravenous Minds", "Revealing The Dark", and "Divine Inner Ghost" are all banging tracks that have sharp hooks, while we get a more stretched out song in "Jeanne Boulet 1764", but even that one is dramatic and melodic.

"Four Blessings" is a slight hiccup, relying too heavily on "whoa-oh" sections, but it's only a slight dip in the second half of the record. It would be hard to keep up the pace of the initial few tracks, which Brainstorm doesn't quite do, but they acquit themselves well throughout. "Midnight Ghost" is a very solid example of what power metal is today, or maybe what it should be. It isn't fully to greatness, but it's Brainstorm at their best.