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After the supreme Valley Of The Lost, Thorbjorn Englund took the reins of his Winterlong project and ran them straight downhill, plunging the band into more traditional and worn soil. There's nothing bad about The Second Coming per se; it's just not as good as its predecessor, and actually, when scrutinized, it sounds little like the same band. Everyone apart from Englund is gone; we have drum duties split between Anders Johansson and Vanden Plas stickmaster Andreas Lill, all keys by synth-wizard Mistheria, and vocals handled by Mikael Holm, who sings rather beautifully, with a feminine style that is more suited to the sweet leanings of many of the melodies here.

Eschewing the cold feel of the debut, The Second Coming is more typical and less exciting, though there are still good songs to digest. The production is significantly more palatable, having a sheen the debut didn't, and the material itself sits between fast, double-kicked Power Metal in Insania or Stratovarius style, and sweet Prog Metal, not unlike Silent Call and Seventh Wonder. Englund is the star of the show; his solos and riffs are plastered all over this thing, but the melodies are memorable, and as a whole, this is a solid Power Metal record. But when it comes from a band that produced something as interesting as Valley Of The Lost, it falls short by comparison.

However, tracks like the pelting "Retaliation", the groovy "Wild Winter Nights" (which opens with a riff straight out of Valley Of The Lost), and the catchy "We'll Be Immortals" make this worth picking up, especially if you liked the debut. But overall, The Second Coming is a disappointment.