A Sweet Metal Album You Probably Haven’t Heard – Part Three

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Glory was a Swedish band that played a really cool AOR/melodic hard rock style with lots of progressive metal/ rock tendencies and influences thrown into the mix. The most notable member of the now-defunct band is Göran Edman, the singer who you might know from Yngwie Malmsteen’s hair metal period albums “Eclipse” and “Fire and Ice.”

The man behind the music is Jan Granwick, another virtuoso guitarist from Sweden who has a nice Steve Vai thing going on most of the time and puts together some great melodic rock songs. It makes you wonder how many killer guitarists there are from Sweden that no one knows about (or maybe it doesn’t).

Much like with most singers that have been in Rising Force, you don’t really know what they can actually do vocally or how good they really are until they have left the plump viking shredder’s band and ventured into groups where they had more creative control over what they were singing. They also rhyme “fire” with “higher” and “desire” much less frequently when not playing second fiddle to Malmsteen’s ego.

Edman’s performance is what makes this album. His voice is so crystal clear and effortless, he’s simply a pleasure to listen to every time he grabs a microphone. He really shows his vocal range on “Crisis vs Crisis” and the many different styles he can sing. Edman has a really nice bluesy vibe throughout a lot of this album, especially on “Caught Up in the City,” and then ventures into weirdo almost Peter Gabriel-esque territory on “Itch,” but his vocals probably shine the brightest on the two great ballads “Believe in a Miracle” and “The Battle of the Bridge.”

If you find yourself enamored with Mr. Edman after listening to this album, I’d highly recommend another Swedish band Karmakanic, particularly the debut “Entering the Spectra,” where Edman is once again brilliant.

Karmakanic is a side project of The Flower King’s bassist Jonas Reingold, so it’s a lot more progressive rock oriented than Glory, naturally, but has very catchy and melodic moments as well, though they sometimes get lost in the long, masturbatory instrumental passages that I know you prog nerds love as well.

Anyway, “Crisis vs Crisis” came out in 1996 on Germany’s Dream Circle Records. It’s probably out of print, and even if it’s not you’ll probably have to pay an import price to get your hands on it, but it’s well worth it.

Here’s a track to check out.

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