Visions of Atlantis

With an injection of cheese bigger than a thousand Taquitos from 7-11, what you see is pretty much what you get with Visions of Atlantis. Songs about bodies of water, the power of various things and deserts are pretty much par for the course in the genre of symphonic metal. Their sound isn’t really anything special; VoA are just another female/male vocal trade-off band in the vein of Leaves’ Eyes. Melissa Ferlaak is the real star here. Like many of their contemporaries, her female operatic vocals are much better sounding than her male counterpart’s. Beyond the vocal performances, there isn’t all that much to discuss. There is little on this album that can contribute to the advancement of the oft-epic realm of symphonic metal. At the very least, this album could serve as a warm up to the forthcoming Nightwish album. Beyond that, this kind of cheese is getting too old.