Album Review: Serious Black - Suite 226

It feels weird to say that Serious Black is doing something.... normal with this album. Their second album, "Mirrorworld", was fantastic, but it was sold in two formats, with the band saying the 'bonus' tracks were actually essential parts of the main album (they are - the version including them is the only one worth hearing). Their third album followed only a year later, which is rather unusual for this day and age. So now the band has taken a normal amount of time off before the release of this album, and put together another conceptual piece of power metal. That is all entirely normal, and I'm not quite sure what to think of that. I was getting used to the band being a bit unusual. Keep it weird, right?

The other notable bit about this album is that the band is shifting their direction back to their beginning, with a more power metal oriented sound, tempering some of the more hard rock and traditional metal elements the last two albums integrated. Especially on "Mirrorworld", those were some of my favorite bits.

Anytime a metal band is making concept albums, especially those about psychological/horror themes, there's an inevitable comparison to King Diamond. That's hard to ignore when this record gets started, since "Let It Go" not only has moments like the introduction of the guitar solo that feel like an Andy Laroque construction, but Urban Breed throws vocal inflections into the verses that have the same sort of sinister tone that King Diamond often uses in between his falsettos.

Throughout the album, we get fewer riffs, and more chugging power chords that shift even more of the heavy lifting to Urban's melodies. That's the nature of power metal in its traditional form. The guitars and drums beat away with a steady gait, with the energy supposedly being exciting enough to get us to the choruses. There was a time I was convinced of that argument, but I don't necessarily believe it anymore.

However, if there is a singer in power metal who can carry that burden, it's Urban Breed. From Tad Morose's "Matters Of The Dark", to Bloodbound's "Tabula Rasa", to Trail Of Murder's lone album, to "Mirrorworld", he has given us several albums of the highest-quality metal melodies. He shows flashes of that on this record, with "Let It Go", "Solitude Etude" and "Fate Of All Humanity" boasting the kinds of big, sticky hooks that make power metal great, and Urban one of the better purveyors of the craft. There are also tracks like "Castiel", though, where the chorus is more of a simple chant of the title, and it doesn't have any of the snap or sheen I look for. It tries to drive the point home, but it isn't very sharp.

"Heaven Shall Burn" is much the same. Urban's cadence in the chorus simply isn't melodic, and I have never been someone for whom a repeated line with gang vocals is enough for. I'm looking for more out of a songwriter than that, and it's disappointing when someone who I know is capable of writing great songs isn't able to do so. I shouldn't be surprised, since the previous album was muc the same way. There were three or four fantastic tracks that sat among an album that otherwise was a step back from their peak. That's where we are here as well.

Serious Black has now given us four albums, and three of them fall into the category of 'pretty good with a couple great songs'. They've only made one great record in four, so perhaps the time has come to declare this is who Serious Black are. They're a band of veteran hands who made solid music, but who don't have enough of the spark of a new group to hit their heights. That's fine, and I'm not complaining about this record, but I'm also not going to say it's got my blood pumping. "Suite 226" is enjoyable enough, but it isn't "Mirrorworld". It's not even close.