Kamelot’s new album Dark Asylum places fantastical worldbuilding at its core. Inspired by the Victorian era, the band explore dark and intense themes with a gothic grandeur and their iconic symphonic metal sound.
The storytelling of Dark Asylum is established in its intro track Sanctorium. Led by flowing orchestral arrangements that build into ethereal power, the song provides a fully immersive and theatrical welcome—though it appears something sinister may lurk beneath the surface. Ashen World features Decessus vocalist (and current Miss World Chile) Ignacia Fernández. Highly melodic and captivating, Fernández’s harsh vocal contribution injects ferocious power as the track traverses through passages of light and shade. The album’s title track evokes haunting imagery of the cathedral, what would become the ‘asylum’. Detailed lyrics lead the listener through the dark history of the cathedral’s origins accompanied with the heavy intensity of the music. Soaring choruses provide sustained power against the rhythmic pattern delivered in the track’s verses.
Sanctuary (featuring Fernández and Visions Of Atlantis’ Clémentine Delauney) breathes into life with the sound of siren song. Continuing the sonic character of Dark Asylum, the sense of resplendence prevails across the instrumental parts, while Delauney and Fernández perform an enthralling duet. An interlude of choir voices awaits in the brief Nocte Veritas. Before long, the music erupts into fierce heavy rhythms, as One Last Masquerade—a collaboration with Edguy’s Tobias Sammet—begins. This track is driven forward with an untameable shadowy force and enhanced with theatrics from Avantasia’s Tobias Sammet’s presence. Ivy, My Dear evokes a natural landscape with folk instruments making an appearance. This ballad brings a delicate and soft moment against the gloom embraced elsewhere on the tracklist.
Godlike Alchemy swiftly returns to heavier realms with memorable hooks and an enticing textural quality. Tommy Karevik’s recognisable vocals deliver both intimate moments and soaring power alongside the electrifying guitars. Kamelot’s energy continues in The Sleeping Mind (Orphic Paradigm) as melodic guitars carrying catchy riffs that run alongside thunderous percussion and fast-paced symphonic layers. Kaleidoscope brings a magnetic sound with its dynamic pacing, vocal and instrumental arrangements, and otherworldly atmosphere.
A heartfelt longing is found in Enigma (Think Of Me). This offering of gothic romance reveals a different form of emotive power held within the tracks of Dark Asylum. Something sinister is then revealed in Cassandra’s Disease. The track’s rhythm guitars provided an all-encompassing heaviness while delicate piano notes flutter amidst the distortion, as though seeking a means of escape. Beneath the Moon (Tunglið) returns to the fae wilds. The haunting vocal additions provided by this track’s guest performers, Rannveig Sif Sigurðardóttir, Sólveig Sara Leupold and Lea-Sophie Fischer, elevate the narrative of this folk-inspired song.
The Puppet King carries an unceasing momentum—something that cannot be outrun. The heaviness carries a fierceness fuelled with anguish and emotion. Dark Asylum concludes with Sanctum Requiem, it’s a short piano piece with orchestral accompaniment. The lead piano notes dance around eagerly as the instrumental textures build once again into a heightened magnificence, only to end softly and fade to silence.
For fans of: Epica, Visions Of Atlantis, Xandria
‘Dark Asylum’ by Kamelot is out now on Napalm Records.
Words by Holly Royle
