Triosphere - The Road Less Traveled

Release Date: May 28, 2010
Label: AFM Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Ignition (Intro)
2.  Driven
3.  Human Condition
4.  Death of Jane Doe
5.  Marionette
6.  The Road Less Travelled
7.  The Anger and the
     Silent Remorse
8.  Watcher
9.  21
10.  Worlds Apart
11.  The Last Haven (Outro)

Total playing time:  51:19

August 2, 2010

Reviewer: Chris

Finally, finally…FINALLY a female-fronted band with some balls…to coin a phrase! Norway’s Triosphere simply kicks the doors open and trashes your humble abode while you try and figure out what the hell happened. Yeah, it’s a mess, but the CD makes it worth the trouble. The band’s second full effort is one of complete and total subjugation. 

When one thinks of progressive metal one might think of Nevermore, Opeth, Dream Theater; all very applicable choices indeed. Adding Triosphere to that list is not only necessary but should be required. With a tremendous mix of some true power metal anthem-esque songs, to vocalist/bassist Ida Hauklnd’s absolutely welcome vocal that doesn’t call on either Tarja Turunen or Amy Lee, The Road Less Traveled is one CD that most certainly should be journeyed upon immediately.

This is heavy metal, speed metal, progressive metal and power metal all neatly assembled into one CD that carries the weight of all the genres on eleven tracks of no-nonsense music that is truly a piece de resistance for the Norwegian metal scene. The tracks on Road are a meshing of all the important, if recently diluted offspring that made our scene the abundant cornucopia it is today. It’s a very good experience to actually feel good when hearing an album like this being produced, especially out of Norway where utterly pedestrian ‘third-wave’ black metal is the export of choice.

From moments of introspective rock music to all-out speedy riffing, Triosphere washes clean the stigma of the progressive movement being an overused hype for the modern bands of lackluster design. The map is expanding, people, and these four Norse-folk are forging the way forward. The machine here is one fine-oiled mechanism that will impress even the most trepidation-riddled fan among us.

Standouts on this epic are “Marionette”, “Human Condition”, “Driven” and “The Road Less Traveled”, all of which round out an otherwise stellar release that carries some equally precise production and songwriting that doesn’t paint itself into a clichéd corner. Haukland’s delivery and power can literally command the entire room you might be sitting in when taking in this work, and when you think of someone listening to Evanescence or Arch Enemy and how they think those talented, yet rudimentary women can do no wrong pop this on and force them into enlightenment.

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