‘The king has returned! Never loose your faith!’ These are the main sentences from the first song, produced by Cryonic Temple. A band that came together in 1997, recorded their first demo back then and signed at Underground Symphony, being the best selling band of that label with their debut album ’Chapter 1’. After that, the band signed at Limb Music to record their ‘Blood, Guts and Glory’ album in 2003. Now, in 2005, ‘In thy Power’ is released to make the world aware of Cryonic Temple.

Have you ever got the feeling of manic depression? Maybe you have, not in such an such a excess that you’d need a doctor to solve your problem but in a certain way I think everyone has. It’s on those days that a lot seems to work out pretty well, the sun is shining, you’ve passed a lot of tests and dinner was good. Despite of this, there is no one to share your feelings with, which give you this feeling of confusing. You’re not sure whether to be happy or not, so that every tiny cue could make you either extremely happy or kinda sad.

Why should I mention this? Well, it describes a bit of the way this record makes me feel about the performance of Cryonic Temple. The music is good, no doubt about that. The band consists of very talented musicians, according to the nice song structures, tremendous guitar solos and a fine tuning of the instruments. All of them are clear and well noticeable in a way that the songs are pleasant to hear, providing every instrument some time to get placed to the foreground. There are a lot of instrumental parts in the songs, containing a lot of solos at high speed. Actually, the band has come up with a descent piece of power speed metal. Put this disc in your cd-player and you’ll certainly have a good time. But there are these little moments that are weird, not specifically good or bad but weird. Take the third track for example ‘In thy power’. The song starts very well, with high speed drums and guitars, and the vocals set in. Nothing to worry about until the singer is trying to make loops. They’re not specifically false or bad, but…..ehr, how should I say this? Imagine a fine piece of music and someone singing. Separated, they’re really cool but together it doesn’t come out well. Take that and some strange guitar loops in other loops and you’ll get my point. On the other hand, some of the songs, and especially the choruses are very nice and give me the other feeling, happiness. For example the last song ‘Eternal flames of heavy metal’. The song starts with a very beautiful solo and the strong vocals are coming out tremendously. I could relax and take a nice seat to listen to this one.
Be sure to notice that the music is really good and nice to listen to, but I have personal doubts about this record. And that is only for some tiny parts. Overall, I could listen to this record for quite some other times, but when taking a closer look I cannot say that this cd is going to be one of my favorites.

Track list:

1. The sleep of the innocent
2. When hell freezes over
3. In thy power
4. Travelers in time
5. Beast slayer
6. Wolfcry
7. Mr. Gold
8. A Soldiers tale
9. Shark attack
10. Rapid fire
11. Eternal flames of metal

Line-up:

Janne Söderlund: keyboards
Esa T. Ahonen: guitars
Jan J. Cederlund: bass
Glen Metal: vocals
Leif Collin: guitars
Sebastian “Zeb O” Olsson: drums