{"id":38482,"date":"2014-03-17T19:50:51","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T00:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=38482"},"modified":"2014-03-17T19:50:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T00:50:51","slug":"vanden-plas-chronicles-of-the-immortals-netherworld-path-1-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/vanden-plas-chronicles-of-the-immortals-netherworld-path-1-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanden Plas | Chronicles of the Immortals: Netherworld \u2013 Path 1<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist\/News Editor —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"ChroniclesLong running German progressive metal band Vanden Plas is back with a new album, their seventh full-length release, titled Chronicles of the Immortals: Netherworld \u2013 Path 1<\/em>. Once again the band, which has impressively maintained the same lineup for more than twenty years, took four years between albums, and once again the results are well worth the wait.<\/p>\n

This time around, Vanden Plas is taking a fairly big risk. The band is best known for delivering high quality and highly accessible progressive metal. Their songs are typically just as catchy as they are technical. With Chronicles of the Immortals: Netherworld \u2013 Path 1<\/em> (we\u2019ll just shorten that to Netherworld from here on out), the band is delivering one half of a larger \u201crock opera\u201d style piece that adapts a story by bestselling German fantasy novelist Wolfgang Hohlbein. Now obviously epic fantasy and heavy metal go way back, but this is Vanden Plas we\u2019re talking about, so it was never going to be a matter of simply adapting the lyrics to songs they\u2019d have written anyway. The band, and specifically vocalist Andy Kuntz, have increasing ties to theatrical performances, and that is a major influence on Netherworld. It\u2019s more a theatrical production \u2013 or at least half of one \u2013 than a concept album. <\/p>\n

High concept and theatrical execution are all well and good, but in the end they\u2019re not going to save the album if the songs aren\u2019t any good. Fortunately, Vanden Plas has never let us down in that department before and they don\u2019t break that streak here. It\u2019s true there aren\u2019t any obvious \u201csingles,\u201d but there are still plenty of moments where you can either get lost in the instrumentation or even the overall atmosphere on Netherworld<\/em>, just as there are more than a few places where you\u2019ll want to sing along to a melodic chorus. \u201cThe Black Knight\u201d and \u201cNew Vampyre\u201d come to mind, and \u201cGodmaker\u201d in particular is going to wow fans in terms of catchiness as well as a heaviness we haven\u2019t seen from Vanden Plas in quite some time. On the more theatrical side, \u201cA Ghost\u2019s Requiem\u201d and \u201cMisery Affection\u201d satisfy in a Seraphic Clockwork<\/em> meets Abydos<\/em> kind of way.<\/p>\n

You can tell Vanden Plas put a lot of though, effort and energy into every aspect of this album, and while it may not be as instantly accessible as previous releases, Netherworld<\/em> reveals something new and rewarding with each successive time you listen to it. It\u2019s by far their most ambitious album to date, and for the most part it really pays off. It\u2019s hard to evaluate it fully given that we\u2019re only getting half of the story and half the overall musical experience, but this should more than satisfy most Vanden Plas fans. It\u2019s already a contender for best progressive metal album of 2014, and proof once more why Vanden Plas is one of the most enduring names in the genre.<\/p>\n

Genre: Progressive Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nTorsten Reichert (b)
\nAndreas Lill (d)
\nStephan Lill (g)
\nGunter Werno (k)
\nAndy Kuntz (v)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tVision 1ne
\n2.\tVision 2wo \u2013 The Black Knight
\n3.\tVision 3hree \u2013 Godmaker
\n4.\tVision 4our \u2013 Misery Affection Prelude
\n5.\tVision 5ive \u2013 A Ghost\u2019s Requiem
\n6.\tVision 6ix \u2013 New Vampyre
\n7.\tVision 7even \u2013 The King and the Children of Lost World
\n8.\tVision 8ight \u2013 Misery Affection
\n9.\tVision 9ine \u2013 Soul Alliance
\n10.\tVision 10n – Inside<\/p>\n

Label: Frontiers Records<\/p>\n

Website: www.vandenplas.de<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 9\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Senior Columnist\/News Editor — Long running German progressive metal band Vanden Plas is back with a new album, their seventh full-length release, titled Chronicles of the Immortals: Netherworld \u2013 Path 1. […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10848],"tags":[2317,8971,374,1098,8970],"class_list":{"0":"post-38482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2014","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-chronicles-of-the-immortals-netherworld-path-1","10":"tag-frontiers-records","11":"tag-progressive-metal","12":"tag-vanden-plas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}