It makes you want to climb a mountain and fight centuries-long battles with ancient deities. Remember what I wrote about the last song? This is almost twice as fast. ‘ Astral Empire ‘ might literally be the fastest song I’ve ever heard. There’s a keyboard solo smack bang in the guts of this truly staggering musical effort that will probably make you cry from too many emotions rushing out your music enjoyment glands all at once. Everything the two lead shredders shred, he easily both rivals and compliments with mind-bending synth action (he even casually plays parts with his tongue and teeth on stage). No other people on earth (and almost undoubtedly in subsequent solar systems and universes) will ever understand how Herman and Sam do what they do with their instruments, but Vadim on the keys is often overlooked as the soaring talent he is. It’s so categorically awesome from start to finish that I don’t mind having to mop my face up after each listen. I’d like to give this song a more thorough review, but the sheer gob-smacking pace of it makes it nearly impossible for human ears to ingest it. ‘ Judgement Day ‘ beautifully arrives with swishing and twinkling synths for its first 30 enveloping seconds, then it literally fucking explodes. It’s a classic DragonForce structure, replete with all the familiar tropes of the six-piece driving solos, wailing falsetto vocals, and swathes of boundless positivity. The eponymous album opener is little more than a crescendoing instrumental prologue the huge ‘ Ashes of the Dawn ‘. It’s cohesive and rollicking stuff from the undisputed kings of bombastic positivity and monumental musical skill. Maintaining all the bewildering and wondrous melodic scale DragonForce fans have come to adore in cultish proportion, while burgeoning a more intricate pace and structure as an album. Reaching into Infinity is a gargantuan epic of whatever-a-word-bigger-than-epic-is-if-it-exists proportions. Twitter: Lambasted for a generation by miserable metal purists incapable of fun, but revered by anyone who likes fast guitars and a damn good time, DragonForce continue to power on through their envious career at the top of the modern metal mountain with the release of a blistering and unprecedented 7 th album. Vadim Pruzhanov // Keyboard, Keytar, Synthesizer, Backing Vocalsįrédéric Leclercq // Bass, Backing Vocals