Less than a year after their really well-reviewed debut, this Danish Theatrical Sympho (Power) Metal quartet returns with a deliciously bombastic sounding follow-up! There's not really many surprises compared to the debut, except that vocalist Henrik Brockmann (Royal Hunt), guitarist Henrik Flyman (MoahniMoahna, Zool, Wuthering Heights), bassist Kasper Gram (Wuthering Heights, Manticora), and drummer Dennis Buhl (Sinphonia) invited a couple of befriended keyboard players to play that part on one song each. Those guests being Andre Andersen (Royal Hunt), Richard Andersson (Time Requiem, Space Odyssey) and the talented newcomer Mikkel Jensen, keyboard lovers really are in for a treat! Not that the other (8, including the outro) tracks don't have any keyboards on 'em, on the contrary! The vocal part on the album is really something because, especially with the (conceptual) title of the album in mind, there's room for vocal multitude. Some songs even have double lead vocals. Not in the way that one text is sung by two vocalists, but actually each of the vocalists singing 2 different texts at the same time, creating the effect of a dialogue where 2 people are talking to each other without really listening...or perhaps it is to create the image of a person saying one thing, and thinking an other? I don't know!Also interesting is the 'choral' vocals that can be found all over the album (I'm almost sure there's some computer trick here). Anyway, I've always been a fan of Brockmann's singing, so I'm slightly prejudiced. Flyman's guitar is deliciously Neo-Classical at one moment, rather more Progressive at the other, and borderline Melodic Power Metal at the other, with some aspirations towards a symphonical sound at yet another moment as well. Diversity? Hell yeah! Especially since there's overdubs, allowing for great and enthralling (at moments double) lead parts on top of the rhythm guitar! The keyboards are simply delicious and serve to make the whole the more bombastic. As a whole, the music, the vocal parts, everything is done in such a way, that the listener has no problem whatsoever in creating an image in his fantasy, whereby the band is actually playing in a big theatre's orchestra box, with an additional choir in there as well, and on stage you have this very dynamic and slightly wacky (must be, with such an album title) play goin' on. Wonderful album!

92/100

Tony