KAMELOT The Awakening | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by Napalm Records on March 17th, 2023

Quick Background

Kamelot is an American power metal band from Tampa, Florida, formed by Thomas Youngblood in 1987. The Norwegian vocalist Roy Khan joined for the album Siége Perilous, and shared songwriting credit with Youngblood until his departure in 2011. On June 22, 2012, Youngblood announced on their website that their new vocalist would be the Swedish singer Tommy Karevik, who was first featured on Kamelot's album Silverthorn as the main vocalist, co-songwriter, and lyricist. 

The Awakening

The Awakening is the thirteenth studio album by Kamelot. It is the band's first studio album in five years, following 2018's The Shadow Theory, making this the longest gap between two of their studio albums. It is the first one to feature Alex Landenburg on drums and it's already the 4th album with Tommy as singer. His soaring vocals complement the band's sound, and his range allows him to transition from melodic ballads to powerful, high-energy anthems. No surprises there and good to see that the band could survive a difficult frontman change.

In addition to the intro and outro tracks, the albums features 11 songs and totals almost 53 minutes. The 11 songs stay very consistently between 4 and 5 min long and there are no epics or longer songs in parts. As always, the focus of the band is not on the guitars really, those are mostly chugging guitars and power chords, rarely we have riffs and long elaborated guitar solos. But the symphonic elements, choirs and keys make Kamelot to sound big and epic. That's their style. And most importantly, Youngblood focus have always been on melody and catchiness, so special attention is given to vocal lines and big catchy choruses. 

The first track following the intro is "The Great Divide", a trademark modern Kamelot in the  "Veil of Elysium" style, it's heavy and by the way it does feature a nice guitar solo. "Eventide" keeps the tempo fast and the heaviness, specially due to to the super heavy Post-Chorus while being catchy and melodic. It's a perfect Kamelot single and I dare to say a future live favorite.  It's also a nice way to bring us to another heavy tune, "One More Flag in the Ground" which was the album's first single. A stand out track is "Opus of the Night (Ghost Requiem)" featuring Tina Guo who has toured the world as a Classical Cellist soloing player. It's a cool song bringing back the Ghost Opera vibe. Tina also plays a major role in the ballad "Midsummer's Eve". I don't necessarily dislike ballads, and Kamelot has some good ones such as "Abandoned" and "Song for Jolee" but the only thing good about this one is Tina's presence. 

There's a lot of call backs on this album and "Bloodmoon" brings back the eastern music influences that we have seen in the past in songs such as "Nights of Arabia". "New Babylon" featuring Melissa Bonny, a Swiss heavy metal singer from the symphonic metal band Ad Infinitum, is one of my favorite songs on the album. Recently I reviewed the new album from Xandria, and this song reminds me a lot of it. But with the added benefit of the dynamic between Tommy and Melissa voices. The last song before the outro, "My Pantheon (Forevermore)" leave us on a high note, it's a good anthemic song.  

The Picky Guy

In addition to the 2 ballads mentioned before, I also find the over melodic "NightSky" a bit repetitive. Overall, that's my only concern with the album, repetition and similarity. Besides the guest appearances which added a nice flavor to the album, the band play quite safely in known territory. We've heard all of this before and it's difficult to distinguish songs and the last 4 albums as it is all sounding very much the same. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but for seasoned fans, the band is loosing that edge of appeal. For example "The Looking Glass" tries to recreate "Karma" and many others.

Wrap Up Opinion 

Overall, The Awakening is a solid album that showcases Kamelot being back to the roots. The album's themes and sound are well known to long time fans and well-executed, making it a must-listen for fans of the band. Despite not being too adventurous, it's still a good album deserving 80/100. 

SCORE: 80/100

Genre: Power Metal

Released by Napalm Records on March 17th, 2023

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

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