It's been 9 years since I last reviewed an album by Grace Solero, the last time I chatted to Grace, it was to apologize for showing up so fashionably late for a Bernie Torme gig that I'd missed her opening set. The only line-up change in the last 9 years has been on the drum stool as Maurizio Liberato has been replaced by Dave Guy who has joined Bjorn Zetterlund on bass and Dan Beaulaurier on Guitar and Grace is also still playing guitar as well as singing.
The album was recorded with Jon Clayton and mixed by Chris Brown and as with Hundred Years Apart was Mastered by Andy "Hippy" Baldwin at Metropolis studios.
The album opens with Lucid Dream that shows that Grace Solero's sound hasn't changed loads since I last reviewed her for her second album Hundred Years Apart back in 2013, as they still play wonderfully windblown, full bloodied metal, with Grace's operatic vocals letting us know all about what's going on in that dream, as the guitars rise and fall all the way to the cowbell break down.
Metamorphosis has low breathy vocals that soon rise and are double or is it triple tracked to make it sound suitably huge as this song of change grows and we figure out how long the state of grace she sings about will last as the guitar runs build and build.
Love And Addiction is big seductive song that rises and falls like the peaks Grace is singing about before the nicely over the top guitar solo takes over.
Awake has a slow almost whispered opening before as expected this song starts to go huge, built around a nice rolling riff it breaks down in the middle to an sort of Celtic chant as the guitar starts to wail away and like much of this album it feels very operatic and still has echoes of Within Temptation and Sonata Arctica.
Orange Sky is full of premonitions for what's about to happen and how things are going wrong and how the real culprit will likely get away with it once more. This is easily the most bass led song on the album, as it's bassline seems central to getting the songs point across as the ghosts start to chatter through the walls in a very Pit And the Pendulum kind of way.
Time Waits For No One slows things down a bit as the regrets and musings as to how to handle the changes we are going though unfolds.
Till You Return opens like it was made for one of the bands acoustic sets, it also feels quite floaty as Grace gets all breathy as she hopes you might go back to her once more.
Ocean Star is a slowly building operatic metal song that is nicely episodic with short instrumental interludes as that Ocean Star helps to guide them.
The album closes with Shaman that has breathy vocals and a slow pulsing beat that slowly as the guitars wrapping themselves around it and the song becomes more like a musical incantation.
Find out more at http://gracesolero.com/wordpress/product/pre-order-metamorphosis-cd/ http://gracesolero.com/wordpress/ https://www.facebook.com/grace.solero.5 https://gracesolero.bandcamp.com/releases
