Kamelot have won many accolades over their now lengthy career for their distinctive brand of progressive and melodic Power Metal, particularly for the superior vocal abilities of Roy Khan and their progressive edge that makes them undeniably better and certainly more interesting than the Power Metal pack. At the risk of being stoned as a heretic by the Power Metal fraternity I have to say that personally speaking, they are one of those bands that I have always considered to be quite good and an enjoyable listen, but then completely failed to get excited about them for some reason. Sorry.
Kamelot have always been a dependable band for their fans in that they do what they do very well indeed and have tended to stick to doing that. Their previous album "Epica" did disturb a few of their fans by being a little bit more biased towards the catchier, more melodic side of their sound, not a lot - but enough for some Kamelot fans to fear that they would take this further and head towards a more commercial direction on subsequent albums. This album proves that this is not the case by being slightly heavier and more progressive.
This is their 7th full length studio outing and starts off very promisingly indeed. Opener "The March of Mephisto" combines Kamelot's heaviest guitar riff to date with a superb catchy chorus. Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir also provides guest vocals on this song, providing more of a cameo appearance in the chorus than the duet with Roy Khan that I was hoping for, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this is an absolutely fabulous track. Stratovarius keyboard legend Jens Johansson also provides a memorable guest solo on this as well. For my money this is the best song that Kamelot have ever done by an absolute mile.
Next song "When The Lights Are Down" introduces that speedy Power Metal with double bass drums and neo-classical guitars element that no Kamlet album would be without - but this song has enough changes of pace, and variation from that seemingly ubiquitous "typical" Power Metal sameyness for me to like it rather than get irritated by it.
"The Haunting (Somewhere In Time)" is an extremely catchy and accessible song with another guest appearance, this time from Simone Simons of Epica (a band who are such big Kamelot fans that they took their name from the previous Kamelot album). It is quite poppy, but in a good way, and has another superlative chorus that easily rivals that of opener "The March of Mephisto". If things were different and bands like Kamelot had a possibilty of getting radio play, then I could easily imagine this song charting.
So far, so good. 3 tracks in, and each of them sounds different. This is shaping up to be an excellent album that completely has my attention - but every time that I listen to the album I always start to find my attention wandering during the songs that follow. I always fall asleep sometime during the 4th song and I always wake up again at the start of the title track “The Black Halo”.
When I realised that I didn't actually remember much about the intermediate songs and played them again, I found that I liked what I heard and that it was all superbly done. If you are a Kamelot fan then I expect that you will love these songs because as far as I can hear they all have "Kamelot Song [TM]" written all over them. Maybe this is the reason why they all seemed to merge: Enjoyable; very well done; but somehow lacking in that “Wow!” factor.
As a non fan, I have to say that "The Black Halo" didn't quite convert me, but for at least a few songs it came very close and suggested that a future Kamelot album might.
There isn't actually anything on this album that I don't like, but there are only a few songs that I would consider "exceptional".
Standout Tracks: March of Mephisto, Somewhere In Time, The Black Halo.
Overall Score: 6 /10
