Start From The Dark - Europe

It's been 13 years since Europe released their last album "Prisoners in Paradise" and 17 years since "Final Countdown" was released and their guitarist John Norum left the band. Now in 2004 Norum is also back in the band. So will we get a new "Final Countdown"?

In the beginning of this year Sony released an Europe collection that topped the charts all over the world. This was possible through great promotion, ...
...we saw several commercials before the release. I never heard or saw any promotion for this new album. Is this album really this bad or what? Unofortunately they signed up a small german label called Noiserecords which has signed up a lot of very talented groups and musicans, but their artists never get the chance to top the charts due the lack of promotion. Ever wondered where legends such as Wasp or Motorhead disappeard? To Noiserecords...
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It's been 13 years since Europe released their last album "Prisoners in Paradise" and 17 years since "Final Countdown" was released and their guitarist John Norum left the band. Now in 2004 Norum is also back in the band. So will we get a new "Final Countdown"?

In the beginning of this year Sony released an Europe collection that topped the charts all over the world. This was possible through great promotion, at least in the finnish and swedish televisionchannels over here we saw several commercials before the release. I never heard or saw any promotion for this new album. Is this album really this bad or what? Unofortunately they signed up a small german label called Noiserecords which has signed up a lot of very talented groups and musicans, but their artists never get the chance to top the charts due the lack of promotion. Ever wondered where legends such as Wasp or Motorhead disappeard? To Noiserecords...

Europe definately decided not to rehash their 80s glory and play it safe. They tried very hard to modernize their sound to match these times. The riffs, athmosphere and themes are quite heavy even in modern standards. A little heavyness to this band couldn't do any bad, could it? Sadly when the heaviniess factor has gone up, the catchiness has suffered. Don't expect to find any "Final Countdown", "Rock the night" or "Cheroke" here.

We talk about a modern hardrock album of 2004 with downtuned guitars, hardly no guitarsolos nor keyboards. I always found that keyboard athemns was the trademark of Europe, but if I wouldn't have read that Mic Michaeli was still on the keyboards from the leaflet I would have thought that they kicked him from the band. If you listen really carefully you will notice some keyboards in the background on some tracks, a few short guitarsolos can also be found on some tracks.

Fortunately Joey Tempest has still an amazing voice and there are some very good vocal melodies. John Norum does a great work on the guitars,downtuned and thick. There are sadly no real masterpieces here and most songs will exit your mind just after you listened to them. The most memorable are the first two tracks "Start from the dark" and "Got to have faith". If you heard Skidrow's comeback album "Thickskin" from last year you know excactly what to expect from this album too.

If you want a modern rockalbum then I could recommend it, but if you expect anything in vain of old Europe sound you will be very disapointed. 

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