Moonlight Agony comes with their second studio album Silent Waters on Dockyard 1 records and have delivered a solid album of power metal with some great progressive moments. The album has quite a dark feel to it with a lot of heaviness and balls.

The opening track "Leaving Solitude" is a great start to the album and really shows their obvious power metal roots. They manage to pull of some very fast playing that is quite tight and impressive and throw in some progressive moments with shifts in timing and tempo. "Leaving Solitude" sets the scene well for the rest of the album. 

The follow up track "You Betrayed Me" really reinforces the heavy and dark sound of the album with some really low slung sounding riffage. While it does have some massive cliched sounding power metal moments with huge gang vocal harmonies and an ever present double kick, it doesn't over do it.

Vocalist David Akesson provides a great performance on the album. While he does not come across as an amazing singer, his voice has something cool about it that makes him very entertaining to listen to. He adds enough roughness to his voice that helps push out a powerful sound and brings emotion out in what he is singing about.

The album travels through each track maintaining a good level of intensity and darkness and doesn't get carried away with the airyness or preoccupation with sounding like a power metal band trying to tell and epic story. There are no bardic interludes or narrated segues between songs. The longest track on the album clocking in at only 5:50, there are no tracks that get boring or tiresome as the band seem to get straight to the point and hammer out the songs.

The guitar sound is great throughout, with guitarist and main composer Karl Landin using a 7 string to add a lot of depth and oomph to the riff driven segments and lead guitarist Rickard Petersson brings a great lead tone and some great solo moments to the album.

While it sticks pretty tightly to a power metal sound, there are some great dynamics throughout the album with the band breaking down into some proggy moments and softer parts which stop an overload of low B guitar riffs and double kick intensity with big harmonies.

The previously mentioned longest song on the album "Different Stories" has a great variety of sounds throughout and I think is one of the stand out tracks on the album. It includes a light yet rather sinister sounding orchestral break that ties back into a really intense heaviness really well.

The closing track "Solemn Waters" includes some fantastic guest female vocals provided by guest Sara Kvist which serves as a great closer to the album.

Whilst the promo states that Moonlight Agony are on their way to the top of the progressive metal scene, I think that they are very much more a power metal band than a prog band. However i do think they would act as a great gateway band for fans who are into power metal, but looking to listen to some proggier stuff.  People into bands like Blind Guardian or Rhapsody may find that the proggy elements of Silent Waters could be a good introduction to some more proggy bands like Symphony X, Ayreon and Dream Theater, and probably in that order.

All in all a very sold and cool album. The production is really clean and well done and the cover art is fantastic.

http://www.moonlightagony.com/
http://www.myspace.com/moonlightagony