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Since their inception Tommy Johansson's ReinXeed have been putting out an album a year, and their sixth full-length A New World finally finds Tommy and the gang beginning to run out of steam. There's only so long you can keep mining a vein of creativity, and here it would seem ReinXeed are in need of a new vein.

Super slick melodic power metal is the name of the game, and it looks as though Tommy has been having difficulty topping his high score. Whilst Welcome To The Theater was a wonderfully brazen affair, bounding with energy and loads of cracking songs, A New World is decidedly more of the same which I've unfortunately found to be somewhat wanting in the energy department. Now don't get me wrong, this is still speedy, double kicked, keyboard-driven power metal in the vein of Stratovarius and the like; it's just the material feels tired, and sadly a little dull in places.

When opening a power metal album you really want to hit the ground running, and with "Distant Horizon" I'd say ReinXeed have fumbled slightly, with a standard affair that generates little in the way of excitement. The production feels a little stifled as well - which doesn't help matters. The best way I can describe it would be if their last album was a boiling, bubbling pan, then this time around it seems someone has popped a lid on said pan and set to simmer. It isn't until around "The Star" that the album really picks up in quality, and I really appreciate the synths in this one; if this song had come out in the eighties it would have been a shoe-in for the Transformers soundtrack.

The latter half of the album is certainly home to the stronger tracks, and despite some shoddy lyrics doing their best to hurt "Guitar Hero" it's still a pretty good number. It's a shame there's nothing as cool as "Life Will Find A Way" or "Somewhere In Time" from Welcome To Theater, although I'd say songs such as the aforementioned "The Star", the ace "Chalice Of Time" and the super cool title track are worthy installments in the ReinXeed canon. It's also worth mentioning that Tommy's vocals are particularly strong here, and I feel he's really coming into his own as a singer now – certainly the strongest aspect of the album.

I'm sure fans of the band will no doubt enjoy this one, as really it is business as usual for ReinXeed. I was expecting more due to the quality of their last one, and whilst some of the material is a little uninspiring; for the most part I'd say A New World is solid enough. If you're in the market for some melodic, keyboard-laden power metal, you could do a lot worse than ReinXeed.