WINGDOM

Here's a band called Wingdom. Let's take a moment to let that sink in...

...

Wingdom?

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Back in 2010 I was living in Germany and enjoying the vast landscape of obscure progressive/power/symphonic metal bands that Europe has to offer, and as such, I stumbled across this album on eBay for the measly sum of '1. Wingdom? Ha! "What an awful name for a band". But hey, the seller listed it as progressive metal, and it was a Euro, so I decided to give it a chance.

I'm glad I did.

This album is absolutely fantastic, and incredibly underrated. Sadly, Wingdom have since split up and never released a follow-up, but 'Reality' shows so much potential for a band that could have gone on to make some really good music.

Similar to bands like Platitude (who nobody has heard of) and Red Circuit (who approximately seven people have heard of), Wingdom have that very distinct and recognizable progressive metal sound of heavy, groove-laden guitars and melodic keyboards, intertwined with some fantastic male vocals of a pretty high range, but without the ten-minute songs and constant time changes. It's a sound any fan of prog or power metal can instantly appreciate, and it won't take countless listens to familiarize yourself with every song!

It's radio-friendly progressive metal that you will never hear on the radio!

In fact, within seconds of putting this album on, opening track 'Time' had won me over! It doesn't mess around with three-minute long intros, it gets straight to the punch, and sometimes that's just what progressive metal needs! It doesn't have the crazy level of musical virtuosity that'd you hear in bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X or Time Requiem, but songs like 'Never Stop', 'Lighthouse', 'The Essence', and the aforementioned 'Time', are all reasons why this album shouldn't be left to linger in musical obscurity.

If you can look past the silly name (challenge: tell a friend you like a band called "Wingdom" and see how daft you feel afterwards) then there really is some solid music here, which goes to demonstrate the old clich' of why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

This may be my first - or second - time to review a (Prog) METAL artist! That's not a genre I generally listen to. Wingdom is a Finnish band that plays melodic metal with plenty of keyboards. The songwriter is the keys player Mikko Harkin. Well, actually, this is a pretty good album, even I can listen to it and get something of it without a headache. I'm glad I took this step outside my comfort zone (but hey, last summer I was in a concert of SONATA ARCTICA! I guess these two bands are more or less similar). Now I understand much better why so many people enjoy metal music. The emotion and energy of it. This is of course from the easiest side of metal, no death growls, thick noise walls, crazy speed or other extreme metal specialities around. At the same time I must point out that it's not metal at its most progressive either, far from it. The songs are mostly in 4-5 minute length, though there's one 12-minute track too.

Vocals of Sami Asp are tight and strong, typical for the genre. I suppose this music can be compared to the commercial heavy rock that I heard in my youth in the 80's, bands like Europe, but happily Wingdom is not that commercial. The songs are quite accessible but not sounding like wannabe-chart hits. Some of the lyrics deal with themes like loneliness and the importance of love, or a wish to have some guiding light in this troubled world. They're OK, if a little clichéd.

The rhythm section is suitably strong without being too loud, and also the roar of metal guitar is kept at balance. The keyboards bring nice brightness to the overall sound. There's no notable soloing, which doubtlessly would have improved the music. But if my little review has any credibility, I say this is a very suitable place to get into metal.