Epicentre 2013

"Gutiar virtuoso and owner of Lion Music, Lars Eric Mattsson, has a shitload of albums under his belt – both as a solo artist and as a member of acts like Book of Reflections, Vision, and Condition Red. While there is no doubt that he is incredibly gifted and that, though Lion Music, he has made a tremendous effort in keeping progressive metal, neoclassical metal, hard rock, and melodic metal alive, I think that the quality of his output is varied. In 2011, he released the instrumental album ”Aurora Borealis” which I found underwhelming, while his 1998-album ”Obsession” (reissued last year) is absolutely brilliant.

This year, he released ”Epicentre”. While following the neoclassiclly oriented ”Aurora Borealis”, ”Epicentre” does not follow up on ”Aurora Borealis”. While the preceding album was quite onesided, this one is multifacetted, as Mattsson explores a range of expressions and vistas. Thus, we are treated to tracks, like 'Cinnamon' or the swinging 'Too Late', while others, like 'No Way, No Surrender' and 'Wait for the Sunrise' as well as the heavy 'Freedom Fighters' and 'No More War' are all out prog metal attacks in the form of complexly structured flurries of passages and sections. Also in the progressive metal department, 'Land of Dreams' and 'Mirror' both explore eastern music, the latter also being nicely funky. There is enough variation on the album that the 18 tracks never get tiresome to listen to.

Also, while Mattsson is obviously a guitar shredder – and there are loads of guitar acrobatics of all sorts on the album – we are not dealing with a purely instrumental album. In fact most of the tracks feature vocals delivered by Mattsson himselft. His husky singing style may not please everybody, but it does its job. Needless to say there is nothing wrong with the musicianship and, all the more impressively, Mattsson plays all instruments with the exception of the drums (which, sadly, suffer a bit from the production – I think that the drums could have been more prominent in the mix and that they could have had a more organic sound).

Anyway, like ”Obsession”, ”Epicentre” captures Mattsson at his best and shows that there is more to his creativity than just neoclassical shredding. In other words, we are dealing with a fine progressive metal album which is enjoyable almost all the way through.

(review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"