Flashback CD Review #79 - Dark Illusion - Beyond The Shadows

This review was written for the Rock Is Life.com website in 2006.

Dark Illusion
Beyond The Shadows
Battlefield Records - 2005
http://www.darkillusion.se

What's The 4-1-1?

The first full-length studio album from the Swedish power rock group that originally formed all the way back in the early 1980's.

Genre

Heavy Metal / Power Rock / Melodic Metal

The Good

There are a lot of good points to the first full-length CD from Dark Illusion.

I love the guitar work from Tomas Hultqvist. The guitar playing demonstrates not only a great technical ability but also combines that with great feel for the music as well. It is not just notes played for their own sake. The music is taking you on a journey. The songs have an epic feel that is common to the power rock genre but they aren't stretched out monotonous showcases. The longest song on the album is just over 4 1/2 minutes.

The material ranges from songs originally written in the 1980's to tracks from the 90's and more. The material may be old, but the sound isn't. Dark Illusion takes the great power rock sound of the past, combines it with modern day feel and comes up with great rockers like "Night Knight" and "Child of the Night" as well as slower tempo songs such as "Tragedy" and "Into The Depths I Stare". Each of these songs is particularly outstanding on the disc. One other song of note is "Leave No Traces". It has a great fast paced musical backing to machine gun spitting vocals. I love those types of songs a lot and this one turned out rather well.

The Bad

I didn't really care for "Sensational Walk", it just left me cold. While I liked the music, I thought the lyrics for "Secret Journey" were substandard. While it didn't affect my enjoyment of the album overall, some of the vocal phrasing of the lyrics was a bit disjointed.

The Verdict

If you were a fan of the power rock of the 1980's, I think you will absolutely love the album. The album can stand on its own with no problem. I found myself also thinking the band had the spirit of the Helloween albums from the 1980's with singer Michael Kiske. If a band can make me think of that, it can only be good for them. You take big powerful choruses, superb guitar playing and some generally top notch vocal work and you find yourself with a winning album.

Did You Know?

Vocalist Thomas Vikstrom has performed with Talk of the Town, Brazen Abbot, Stormwind and Jeff Scott Soto.

Rating: 4 out of 5