?Classics? of power metal #8: KAMELOT - Epica (2003), upon further review

I think in previous entries in this series I've established my basic peccadilloes - I like just enough of a veneer of sophistication to keep me entertained whilst I grab on to a big catchy hook.  Epica doesn't quite fit that, falling more into the category I summarized in the last post - pleasant swells of music that don't leave much of an impression.  I keep wondering if it's going to grab me, like the afternoon I found myself humming a bit of "Farewell" at work.  I consider it a triumph that I can kinda, sorta, remember how that one goes, although all I remember is the vocal part.  "The Mourning After" makes its way into my head fairly often through sheer repetition, but I don't know if that really counts as catchiness so much as just having heard the main lyric three times as often as in most other songs.  The rest... mostly drawing a blank.  Why aren't the songs - songs that, almost universally, sound good to my ears - landing harder?  

I have two hypotheses as to why.  One possibility is that I simply have different tastes than what the band is catering to.  That they're all about slick textures and atmospheres, whereas I want more big tunes and guitar-forward metal.  That my preferred level of grittiness is a few steps higher than this band that doesn't really do grit.  The reason that argument doesn't convince me is that I don't see any obvious reason Epica shouldn't be a match for my tastes.   Listen to a riff like "The Edge Of Paradise" and the way it's punctuated by the symphonic bombast.  That sounds good on its own, and even better when it reveals itself as a pairing for the "Opiate Soul" chanting.  On paper, this song ought to be a slam-dunk.  I feel the same way about the whole album.   The music doesn't forget to include crunchy riffs whilst decorating it with a variety of sounds that ought to keep things interesting.  Roy is a good singer.  The choruses are melodic and full of words, lyrical.  As long as I'm in the mood for something on the mellower side of metal, which I often am, this should work.  It does work, at least to the extent that, as I'm sure I've tried to emphasize, I'm almost never going to turn these songs off.  (Okay, except "Wander.")  My ears tell me that this part is good, and so's that part, and so's that part.  On this listen, I'm particularly enjoying the middle section of "A Feast For The Vain," and the way "On The Coldest Winter Night" uses a flattened note at the end of lines to sell the unease that underlies this little interlude.  Anyway, nearly every song has at least something about it that I quite like.  So let me advance a different theory about why I find the record to be less than the sum of its parts.  

What's the most memorable part of "Center Of The Universe?"  For me, it's the keyboard line (assuming I can remember the song at all.  And assuming I don't get it confused with the keyboard line from a different Kamelot song I used to listen to years ago.  Or with the one from Serenity's "Follow Me.").  The keyboard line that drops out when it's time for the singer to start singing.  At its best, obviously a vocal hook can complement and instrumental hook.  I don't really feel that happening often.  Instead what I hear is more of an alternation between a mid tempo storyteller and punchier symphonic metal music.  Shouldn't the punchy music shore up the vocal parts rather than alternating with it?   Check out "A Feast For The Vain" for another good example of waiting for the gaps between the vocalist's lines to drop in the big hard hitting notes.  The pre-chorus and chorus of "Farewell" are a little better in that the drums and tasty chord resolutions are at least going on at the same time as the singing, but even there, it's a line of lyrics, then the drop of a resolved chord from the guitars, then a lyric.  The verses of "The Edge Of Paradise"' actually feature the vocals and the guitar line stepping on each other!

Since again I'm a vocal melody listener, it's death if I'm not feeling energy or passion in what's being sung.  "In The Center Of The Universe" ought to soar as the narrator joneses for forbidden knowledge or whatever, not so, well, restrained.   The lack of crunch makes the soft interludes stand out less, because the whole song sounds like a soft interlude.  "On The Edge Of Paradise" ought to sell the cruel anguish of life not living up to one's visions instead of being so, well, restrained.  "Descent Of The Archangel's" chorus should match the subdued menace of the verse and the rising action of the pre-chorus instead of being so, well, restrained.  Think of the "lead me an ocean awaaaaaay!" part from "Farewell."  That's what I want from the record that it's so rarely giving me.   So that's what I mean if I say that I want the other songs to sound more like Avantasia*, or at least more like "Lost And Damned."  Maybe that's why I like "On The Coldest Winter Night" as much as I do - it has less getting in the way of Roy doing his thing, so he stands out more.

A bit of a stretch, but I'm going to speculate that some of the loss of impact comes from the division of songwriting.  I'm assuming Thomas wrote most of the music and Roy wrote most of the lyrics and the vocal melodies?  Even if they enjoyed working together, I'm gonna say perhaps they were imperfect writing partners.  Compare to some of the other records I've profiled.  Avantasia had its main singer as its sole songwriter, so he knew to save his punchiest, most bombastic instrumental parts to support the parts where he declared himself to be "breaking away!"**  Falconer had Stefan writing everything and using his awesome singer as a handpicked hired hand.  There's something to be said for One Guy as the author of a piece of music.  And although there's no evidence that this disconnect had anything to do with it at all, I can't help but notice that Roy isn't in Kamelot anymore today...

Stray thoughts:

- My sympathies are definitely with the school of thought that Kamelot being an American band doesn't make them any less EUPM through and through.  Not only because Roy is from Norway.  At this point in my journey, I know enough about power metal to confidently declare that they sound like EUPM.  And since I still do think of them as being closer to the Finnish school that gave us Stratovarius and Sonata than to any of power metal's other wings, maybe I should've gone with a real Finnish band rather than a fake one for the writing exercise?  Ah, well.

- It's a shame that the keyboardists are all guests, because the bridging piano parts are both highlights of the record and tend to mesh with what Roy is trying to do.  Someone read the assignment...

- Wow, is "Wander" ever a boring song.

- I'm not quite sure why "Helena's Theme" is written as a waltz, other than to make the record sonically a little more interesting, and it achieves that.  Just another example of Kamelot never being afraid to add another element for texture and variety

- Speaking of variety, I really like the way "III Ways To Epica" is put together.  The classical flourishes and the electronic flourishes at the same time in turn setting up the guitar solo, the back-and-forth in on the chorus in which Mari takes Roy's last word of a line and provides a counterpoint, Roy's lines as Mephisto being punctuated by the chorus.  At the moment I'm ranking "III Ways" as my second favorite track on Epica, but it's probably the single strongest from a compositional craft standpoint.

- For the sorts of characters they are - highly educated, probably upper-class - both Ariel and Helena are so deeply and thoroughly stupid that it's hard to care about their struggles.  What a couple of fucking morons.  Truly, these two kids deserve each other.

- Speaking of stupid, there's sadly not universal agreement on the internet about what ought to be a self-evident fact - "Kamelot" is a really, really stupid band name.  I'm talking Eddguy-level bad.  

Favorite track:  "Lost And Damned"

Runner up:  "III Ways To Epica"

Least favorite track:  "Wander"

Rating:  3/5 

 

Will I come back to Kamelot?

Probably not.  I might still put on the songs I already know once in awhile, and I still won't turn their stuff off if I happen to come across it.  It's just that there's so much music in the world to get to that's higher on my priority list at this point.

 

Things I learned about power metal:

- A lot of my power metal exposure prior to 2025 was really disproportionately in one particular wing of the subgenre

- I was both intrigued by Kamelot and soon drifted away for exactly the same reasons a decade-plus ago as now 

- Single auteurs sometimes write catchier songs than collaborative writing partners 

 

Next:  Early impressions of Angra's Temple Of Shadows, whenever I get around to it!

 

*My level of respect for Tobias's ability to craft hooks goes up when I listen to other artists who don't do it the same way. 

**See previous footnote