After their first album 'Chapter I - Monarchy' at the beginning of 2020 and the acoustic version 'Chapter I Revisited' at the end of 2020, 'Melissa Bonny's' band has not been idle in this year 2021 as Chapter 2, 'Legacy' was released at the end of October 2021 and continues in the path traced in the previous opus. The lineup is quite stable as we find around Melissa, 'Adrian Theßenvitz' on guitar and 'Niklas Müller' on drums, the only change being the bass player 'Korbinian Benedict' who replaces 'Jonas Asplind'. As far as style is concerned, they offer us an original metal mixing different influences: first of all, they incorporate "classical" symphonic metal with provided orchestrations, then, the fuller sound and the more powerful rhythms also show an inflection on the side of the power metal and finally, the released atmospheres bring on certain titles an increased modernity, all this being finely dosed and always benefiting from catchy melodic lines which is one of the great strength of 'Ad Infinitum'.
The 12 tracks represent a little more than 40 minutes of listening for rather short durations between 3 and 4 minutes (the last 3 tracks being instrumental covers), they privilege above all the effectiveness with melodies that one appropriates immediately: The first track, 'Reinvented', benefits from a heady and memorable chorus, then 'Unstoppable' (see video above), powerful and grandiose, continues on this path, followed by 'Inferno' which moderates the ardors and highlights the vocal talent of 'Melissa Bonny' with a new addictive melody and a very nice guitar solo in the second part. The rest of the album follows the same pattern, alternating rhythms and intensities, with Melissa playing on both registers, clear voice and raging growls, as witnessed by the heavy mid-tempo 'Your Enemy', then 'Afterlife' (see video here) takes over with a very nice duet of 'Melissa Bonny' with the singer 'Nils Johan Molin'. Then comes the beautiful power ballad 'Breathe' with a new melody that directly grafts itself in our head, then, it's again a powerful mid-tempo with 'Animals' (see video here) offering a remarkable fusion between the orchestral arrangements and the power of the electric instruments and 'Into the Night', fast and energetic, demonstrates this evolution towards more muscular tracks. In the same spirit as 'Breathe', the power ballad 'Son of Wallachia' develops new, addictive melodic lines, and then 'My Justice, Your Pain' moves away from symphonic metal and brings in its own grain of modernity with its hectic, driving rhythm and a new, memorable chorus, the album ends with two compositions displaying phenomenal firepower, firstly, the unleashed rhythm of the grandiose and powerful 'Haunted' and finally 'Lullaby', which cohabits a moderate symphonic atmosphere with sections approaching death, 'Melissa Bonny' alternating clear vocals and growls.
In summary, with this second chapter 'Legacy', 'Ad Infinitum' still reinforces this feeling of mixing styles that make a traditional symphonic metal with a more modern power metal relying on a singer able to radically vary her register to bring these original alternations which opens this last opus to a metal audience certainly wider than the only fans of symphonic metal... | |
