The second Elegy album, Supremacy sees the band maturing into a stronger outfit with a more focused sense of compostion. Unlike its predecessor, Supremacy maintains a more consistent flow. The band almost entirely drops their hard rock tendencies in favour of speed metal while adding in elements of acoustic guitars and keyboards with catchier vocal harmonies.
The album opener "Windows of the World" features plenty of melodic guitar parts, still marked by neoclassical traits. The song has a great rhythmic backbone to it and Hovinga's singing is much better than on the previous disc. The best vocal track is arguably "Angels Grace". At over seven minutes, it consists of delicate acoustic guitars both in its intro and the middle part, but it is moreso the marriage of crunchy riffs with melodic shredding and fierce double bass drumming that sets it apart from the rest of the tunes. The chorus is gripping and one of Hovinga's best ever. To further diversify their sound, the band experiments with the use of symphonic elements which would fully characterize their future releases. "Poisoned Heart" weaves pounding drums with addictive twin guitar harmonies. The vibrato at the end of the tune gets me every time to this day.
Eduard Hoving proves he is also a fantastic guitar player on the piano-based power ballad "Lust for Life" -- the solo on this track is easily among the album's highpoints along with the tasty playing on the title track. While the former is more in the realm of emotional playing the latter demonstrates the band's technical skills. There is a short instrumental, "Anouk", where the band compellingly mixes synth textures with guitars.
The last track "Erase Me" is both dark and progressive. It has synths, bluesy guitar textures, intense soloing, and soaring vocals. In a sense, it operates as a precursor to the follow-up album, Lost.
Metal Mind Productions' remastered version contains two bonus tracks: one of them is the demo version of the instrumental track "All Systems Go", which shows the band delving into a sweet unison lead in a somewhat muddy mix. The other tune is the demo of "The Grand Change", which is midtempo number with plenty of AOR-like synths and Hovinga's underdeveloped vocal technique. Still the guitar work is still solid and proves the band was to go places.
Track Listing
- Windows of the World
- Angels Grace
- Poisoned Hearts
- Lust for Life
- Anouk
- Circles in the Sand
- Darkest Night
- Close Your Eyes
- Supremacy
- Erase Me
- All Systems Go (Instrumental) (Demo) (Bonus Track) Listen
- The Grand Change (Demo) (Bonus Track)
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