X World/5 - New Universal Order

Artist: X World/5
Title: New Universal Order
Label: AFM Records
Length: 41:45
Origin: International
Style: Future Metal

When Magnus Rosen quit his bass duties with HAMMERFALL to pursue his own musical dreams, he formed together with Big Swede on drums, this band; X WORLD/5 and the concept was to imagine what Heavy Metal would sound like in a 1000 years from now. To complete the crew for his time travels, he brought on board, Andy La Rocque (KING DIAMOND) to produce the album. Andy also plays guitar together with Reeves Gabrels (TIN MACHINE, DAVID BOWIE) and last but not least no other then the PAGAN'S MIND vocalist Nils Rue took the helm. As explained, the idea was to pre-created metal for the year of 3006 and man was I exited about this project, especially with that kind of line-up.
Magnus has clearly achieved his objective by creating music that is very futuristic with electronic sound samples and beat saturated songs. Most of the tracks sound futuristic, but also very monotonous in the mid-paced bracket with just about nothing to give them character melody or feel whatsoever. Maybe the future will bring us boredom and heartlessness. Further, to my dismay, Nils Rue’s extremely overproduced vocals cause me to squirm, as this voice disfiguration was totally unnecessary in my humble opinion. At least Magnus was clever enough to leave some of Nils vocal brilliance in most of the choruses in its natural form. Still, in some places, it could have been Marlin Manson doing all the singing for all that I know and by the way, that goes for some of the more industrial sounding music just the same. Most of the songs I would clearly not define as Heavy Metal, well not in the year 2008 anyways. Hence, I can only give point for making something that is very original and definitely unexpected from such niche acclaimed bunch of musicians.
The promo album has 9 tracks and if AFM Records plans to go for another 1000 years with this kind of music, then help us God. Maybe we should surrender to global warming or initiate total planetary war if only to escape the Heavy Metal of the year 3006?

Peter Fundeis

Tracklisting:

01. CyberChrist
02. Man Machine
03. Charge To War
04. Stand Up
05. A Cryptic Message
06. Crooked Cross
07. Lunar Voyage
08. Argonaut
09. New Eden

Members:

Magnus Rosen - Bass
Nils K.Rue - Vocals
Big Swede - Drums
Reeves Gabrels - Guitars
Andy La Rocque - Guitars

Produced By: Andy La Rocque

Added: May 12th, 2008