The Inner Circle Review

Band	Evergrey
Album	The Inner Circle
Type	Album (Studio full-length)
Released	April 27, 2004
Genres	Dark Progressive Metal, Power Metal
Labels	InsideOut Music
Length	48:20
Ranked	#109 for 2004 , #4,357 all-time

Reviewer :  TheBerzerker         Rating :  70 / 100

One of the most common misunderstanding and prejudice against metal is no doubtly 'Metal scene is full of blind animosity against religions'. Thinking about it, Swedish metal scene, which most parts are consisted with extreme metals i.e) black metal, death metal, is more likely to be misunderstood. However, here Evergrey stands, with by far the most impressive religious concept album in Swedish metal history, with utter counter-logic and profound understanding about the relationship between humankind and religion. (They do have some other issues like child abuse though)
Evergrey is a progressive metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden founded in 1995 with their debut 'The Dark Discovery'. Since then, through their discography, they have shown tendencies to have somewhat 'darker' and 'utter' lyrical images and overall atmosphere. If we look closer to this album, we can find out that the album is focused on religion, cults and child abuse. Tom Englund (Vocals & Guitars and a frontman of the band) said that the spoken parts of the 'Inner Circle' are of an actual person -- the last track 'When the Walls Go Down' samples excerpts from David Wilkerson's speech "A Call to Anguish".
Music-wise, there are the biggest contradicts about the musical quality of this album throughout the Evergrey's fandom ; some say the concept albums should be rated in accordance to their musical quality combined with the lyrical concept while some simply claim this album is not worth listening to except for their first track. I agree to both but I can't help weighing to latter. Unlike Evergrey's previous works like "Recreation Day", "The Inner Circle" is too slow-paced (even the first track starts with slow, simplistic guitar interlude), which in my opinion, ruins the whole album. From the 5th track, "Waking Up Blind", the album becomes somewhat emotional and heart-touching, yet boring. Although we can find the progressiveness that is abundant in Dream Theater or Fates Warning in tracks like "More Than Ever" and "The Essence of Conviction" which combines varied melodies and progressions, they do not have enough power to impress the listeners of their 'power-metallic' vibe went on in previous albums. However, I must comment on Englund 's vocal sets, which is superb and outstanding throughout the whole tracks.
Finishing up, this album still has the finest sense of religious concept album, (unlike those black metal elitists like Funeral Mist who claims PURE Satanism is the most important essence in black metal) I do not believe this album deserves to be the 'Masterpiece of Evergrey' as majority of Evergrey fans claim.