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Sweden's Nocturnal Rites has been kicking around the Power end of the Heavy Metal pool for nearly 20 years though their latest releases have struggled to keep the band above water. Phoenix is album #9 and the name may well be prophetic after the poorly received The 8th Sin which was released a whopping 10 years ago. At first blush I was unimpressed with Nocturnal Rites' dark and angry sound on Phoenix but as I've listened it has grown on me in a foot-tapping, air guitar sort of way. There's nothing all that catchy about any of the choruses and none of the riffs are particularly majestic, but I keep thinking of Symphony X when listening to this. It is not nearly that album's equal, but it possesses a progressive aggressiveness that succeeds by not being just another flowery, keyboard-heavy Power Metal clone. I could do with less of the down tuning as that seems like the easy way to make an album sound dark. Phoenix is not as bad as I was expecting and there are far superior albums that sound similar, but give Nocturnal Rites credit for trying something different.