Sunblaze - Illuminating Heights
Review by Marcel Leonardi
Score: 90

Sunblaze is from Kaiserlautern - German bands are always impressing me. But what we have got here is one of the most ambitious metal projects ever: a full Progressive Metal Orchestra!

The musicians in charge of this brilliant work are Matthias Pfaff, vocals; Martin Enke, guitars; Jörg Enke, keyboards; Michèl Kalifa, bass; Jochen Donauer, drums. The orchestral support is composed of Elisabeth Ramires, violin; Carsten Donaeuer, Clarinet and Sax; and Barbara Wagner, flute. The choir is divided like this: Elisabeth Ramires and Katrin Hansch as sopranes; Barbara Wagner as alto; Thorsten Müller and Martin Enke as tenors, and Mathias Elsässer and Jörg Enke as bass.

All those musicians really stand out, specially due to the great songwriting. The melodies are beautiful, all of the instruments are well-placed, the arrangements are creative, and the singing is great. The choir really adds to the atmosphere of the album, as the different range of the singers make a great combination with spetacular results.

Traditional metal fans be warned, though: the guitar parts are not that heavy, and they are not overused. Instead, you will find great instrumental passages with a delicate, smooth sound which are later combined with time changes and metal elements. The use of unusual instruments as clarinet, sax, flute and violin is so perfect and interesting one might wonder how come people don't use them more often.

This is an album that manages to blend intrincacy with beauty in an elegant way. Nothing sounds complicated just for the sake of showing-off - the way some progressive bands think they should play.

The booklet of this album is very beautiful, with high-quality paper, lots of colors and cool graphic effects - it is certainly up to par with the music. The only fault with this CD is its length. Only 24 minutes of brilliant music that let you begging for more! Don't miss it!

Since posting a full song from this CD would mean posting half of the album, I contacted Jörg and he asked me to post only some parts of the song "Sunblaze". Check it out below.

Contacts: Sunblaze - C/O Jörg Enke - Wackenmühlstr. 13 - 67655 Kaiserslautern - Germany