The album begins with the gentle sound of a violin, swelling up and carving a bleak sound-scape which immediately sets the black tone of the album. "Solitaire" quickly fades into the heavy and sharp "Rule The World", certainly one of the highlights of the album. The band's singer since 1998, Khan, shows his considerable talent with both near-operatic and more metal singing styles, as well as a knack for getting into the 'voice' of each song. It’s a very constant piece, pushing ever forward and building, with the bass and drums following a strict rhythm which is only broken rarely, most notably by Thomas Youngblood's rapid solo. Choirs, orchestra and instruments all crescendo up to the last seconds, before the song fades to silence.

The title track for the album "Ghost Opera" is an extremely catchy and gothic-inspired tune. In the song Khan plays a charismatic role that, to me, is reminiscent of the Phantom's in Phantom of the Opera, unfortunately sometimes overtaken by slightly overdone rhythm guitars and synthesised strings. The lead guitar is crisp and clean, the intro and solos being very high points for guitar-work on the album. Female vocals – done by Amanda Somerville – litter the piece, and I find them meaningless at best and a nuisance at worst. Apart from these, however, "Ghost Opera" is a fast and well-composed piece.

"The Human Stain", is certainly a very good song and there are some fantastic highlights – the 'ticking of the clock' – but it seems to draw very heavily on industrial and gothic metal, which don't seem to gel with long-time listeners of the band. The industrial styling is, however, largely window-dressing. The voice filters, drum-work and keyboard sounds are annoying, but it remains a very good song and its use of piano and fade-outs, along with its environmental message, are particularly fine. Much like "Ghost Opera", I find it clever and powerful, partially ruined by annoying aspects, leaving it simply ‘good’.

Simone Simons from Epica features on the fifth track, "Blücher", though honestly you might not know it unless you were told. The worst of the album's songs, it takes the industrial styling found on "The Human Stain" and takes it up to the next level. Khan's voice is rarely, if ever, heard without filtering, and Simone's is rarely so much as heard. The progressive aspect of the song is good, with voice clips and a solid lyrical concept backed up by the music. The instrumentation is all quite fair, and the chorus' melody is certainly one of the more epic on the disc. Unfortunately, all these good points are far out-weighed by the bad. The good ship "Blücher" sinks in a mess of sound and voice filtering.

An Asian-style tinkling from some unidentified stringed instrument introduces the next song, my favourite from the album. "Love You to Death" combines heaviness and calmness, to my mind, perfectly. It swells up with emotive lyrics and a ballad-like flavour, before exploding into an almost incongruously powerful chorus. Its story stemming from an old Japanese folk tale, the song uses the Japanese musical style to flavour the piece, blending it with the clean and morose voice of Khan and the sweeter voice of Amanda Somerville to make something very, very good. The cleaner keyboard sounds and less weight behind rhythm guitar also help, along with Youngblood's truly fantastic, tear-jerking guitar solo. Brilliance.

"Up Through the Ashes" is another song in the vein of "Ghost Opera": Good, clever, with a whole load of excellent aspects, obscured by a heavy low-end, and notably, a layer of choruses which seems a mile deep. I find the concept of this one particularly cool, however – it tells the story of Jesus' crucifixion through the eyes of Pontius Pilate. The symphonic styling, complete with orchestra, is also very nice. It is good, but seems to slip out of my recollection of the album. I can't put my finger on why; it's just sort of forgettable.

In fact, this forgettable-ness seems to apply to most of the second half of the album. I enjoy it all, as I listen to it, but I couldn’t sing any of the vocal lines – even if I could sing. "Mourning Star" is the next song, introduced by a Gregorian-style chant and a complex drum-beat from Casey Grillo. It’s neat and pleasant, but it doesn’t seize the attention, and the voice filtering is back. For goodness sake, Kamelot, Khan is the best singer in the world for a reason. *ahem*

"Silence of the Darkness" is an upbeat and shredding song, with the high, clean riffs seen in many previous Kamelot songs – "Center of the Universe", "Forever" – but it lacks the power of these two. It somehow seems uninspired, and while it is extremely enjoyable to listen to, with speed and nice vocal melodies and harmonies, good guitar and keyboard solos throughout and a sharp and sudden end, it just doesn’t grab me. Very good. But not very, very good.

"Anthem" is a bit of a misnomer, I think. You'd be expecting a fist-pounding, guitar-burning, drumskin-breaking power-fest. Instead, you get a sweet little string, voice and piano ballad. Khan's voice is fantastic, and the lyrics are beautiful, revolving around the birth of his son shortly after the release of the album. It's well-structured, sweet and hopeful, but somehow empty and it seems to end very quickly. As before, very good, but not very, very good.

The album concludes with the short and sharp "EdenEcho", which again uses the symphonic feel seen on "Up Through the Ashes", with another powerful chorus and heavy use of the choruses and orchestra. Probably the best song of the second half of the album, it's a great conclusion, with awesome instrumentation, and it doesn’t suffer from the overpowering low end of earlier songs. There's a real epic feel to the song, capturing a lot of the past Kamelot, while still moving forward in style. Oliver Palotai's keyboard solo adds some sweetness to the metal, but then that metal is jerked back with Youngblood's distorted guitar.

Ghost Opera has been a slow and interesting album to review. I've listened to it many, many times. The first time, as an absolute Kamelot fanboy – as you can probably tell from all the references to their previous work – I was quite disappointed, but over the listening, it has grown on me enormously. It shows the band progressing, as they should, and shows them embracing far more diversity in their music. Despite all its annoying aspects, Ghost Opera is a very good album, and Kamelot are showing a vast amount of promise for the future.

Khan's vocals, as I have said earlier, I consider the best clean male singing in the world, with a knack for capturing the emotion of a piece, and combining the very best of classical and metal music. Thomas Youngblood demonstrates his all-round skill as a guitarist, shining in both slow and emotional solos and lightning fast fills, while still knowing where to stop and hand over the spotlight, and together the pair writes some fantastic songs, and some which are not so good, perhaps due to too much experimentation, or just something else.

Oliver Palotai, in his first appearance on a studio album, adds a lot to the sound of Kamelot – after using guest keys for years, they now have a dedicated keyboardist and it shows in the increase in complexity and flavour. Glenn Barry and Casey Grillo fill out the sound well, on bass and drums respectively, though they are occasionally drowned in the sea of orchestra, chorus and various synthesised sound effects. Grillo, while no Mike Portnoy, is a very talented drummer, with great skill both in the double-kick pounding speed metal style and in more complex beats.

To sum up, despite its complexity and possibly annoying aspects, Ghost Opera is a polished and quite beautiful album, with great performances from all the musicians. It combines progressiveness with accessibility, bombast with bleakness, and all kinds of other oxymoronic things. It's not just the fanboy in me when I say that everyone should check out, if not this album, then certainly this band.

The reissue of Ghost Opera – Ghost Opera: The Second Coming – conquers many of the shortcomings of the original, with the inclusion of three bonus tracks and a short live concert recording with songs from throughout the bands history.