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Alogia: Elegia Balcanica
Alogia - Elegia Balcanica CD Album Review

Alogia: Elegia Balcanica

Progressive Power Metal
3.5/5.0

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Miner Recordings
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 07.01.2015

At the start, a few comments must be made for clarification. First, Alogia is a Serbian band and, with one exception, they do all their recording in their native tongue. Yet, I was given the impression that this album, Elegia Balcanica, their fifth, was to be in English. It's not, which makes listening a tad difficult as the vocalist sounds like he's speaking in tongues. Second, the album has been out for more than three months already, and this latest push is for an international promotion.

Alogia Elegia Balcanica Photo

Alogia

For more detail, Alogia essentially offers traditional European progressive power metal, probably leaning more heavily to the 'power' metal side. Notably, for you guitar wonks, the band's music revolves around the riffs and leads of the Brankovic brothers (Srdan "Sirius" Brankovic and Miroslav "Mira" Brankovic), who basically work from a neo-classsical foundation. Additionally, there's an adequate synth presence that offers everything from light background parts to full blown symphonic layers as with the title cut. Excepting the fact that Nikola Mijic doesn't sing in English, he does sing clean with a melodic timbre. His voice an uncanny Tobias Sammet feel at times (which seems to be the go-to sound that bands in Europe want.

After these things, the strength of Alogia revolves around good songs in melodic, sometimes lightly complex, arrangements. Many songs are not without an underlying rock groove to propel them like Inferno, a heavier number, or Ona Zna, one of the most catchy songs here. Ultimately, though, it was the strong guitar work of Brankovic brothers within the songs that impressed me the most. Certainly, they are the focal point, but only as the serve each song. A final remark should be made of the bonus track, Intentionally Blind. It features some dude from death metal band Silent Kingdom offering, yup, you guessed it, death vocals. Take a pass. Otherwise, Alogia's Elegia Balcanica is solid and entertaining, yet somewhat typical and predictable, European progressive power metal. Recommended.

AlogiA - Callis Ad Astra (2014 official video)


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In Short

Alogia's Elegia Balcanica is solid and entertaining, yet somewhat typical and predictable, European progressive power metal. Recommended.

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