Vision Divine - Destination Set To Nowhere (2012)

As a fans of power metal I admit Vision Divine is one of my visionary band. When Rhapsody (of Fire) seems “overdone” the genre by being too theatrical, Vision Divine sneak in to take the gap in the “standard” power metal in the late ‘90s. Their first debut in 1998 is still one of my favorite disc, still playing it 'til today , together with Avantasia…oughh yeah. Within the next decade Vision Divine then predictably grew from off side project into full project with dedicated members. Consistently they released album each two years or more. In their more than ten years of career, under Olaf Thorsen ((ex) Labyrinth) the band must be already inspiration for many power metal band from Italy and surrounding. The singer on this 2012 new album, Destination Set To Nowhere is back to Fabio Lione, notes that singer Michele Luppi who take the mic on Fabio’s absence also leave precious moments to the band.

What a bit off shore is prelude track in native language, S’io Fosse Foco, which is a narration but quite slow, giving you a full alert in one and half minutes waiting for the first riff. Then it come The Dream Maker, the keyboard riff and backing guitar riff made it entry to the first power metal track of the album. Although fully supported by double guitarist, (Olaf and Federico, both Labyrinth) the first interlude is courtesy of keyboardist Alessio Lucati, and what trade mark in Vision Divine is their shredding keyboardist on their boat. Beyond the Sun and Far Away is then following up with exact spirit and driven keyboard shower. Then continued again in the third song, The Ark. The album is conceptual outer space theme. A rather break of the pattern is track Mermaids from Their Moons, do not fooled with a mellow opening verse, the song serves well as the best in the album with many technically speed required solos and riff. By this point I will recommended Message to Home, a ballad with nice orchestration and thematic guitar licks. Then Here We Die , maybe the only “standard” guitar riff intro song in the album and finale Destination Set to Nowhere.

So once again the band successfully built an awesome power metal album on a “cliché” outer space theme. By the time you get the album you will also notice a second disc full of Vision Divine “best” tracks. This is really the compilation about A-Z of the band, and actually for the genre (unfortunately my favorite Black Mask of Fear not included). The voice of Fabio Lione remind me to the first Vision Divine debut and I think this album more straight forward and close the their origin, then say, the album prior “9 Degress…”. A full team of five instrumentalist forge the album into higher than acceptable standard of power metal. Along with many similar band releasing good thing this year, listen to this album to get the complete experiences of it.

Metalharem class: ******** eight stars out of ten

Vision Divine – Destination Set to Nowhere 2012
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01. S'io Fosse Foco
02. The Dream Maker
03. Beyond the Sun and Far Away
04. The Ark
05. Mermaids from Their Moons
06. The Lighthouse
07. Message to Home
08. The House of the Angels
09. The Sin Is You
10. Here We Die
11. Destination Set to Nowhere

CD2 (re-Recorded Best Of):
01. New Eden
02. Vision Divine
03. Send Me An Angel
04. Taste Of A Goodbye
05. The Fallen Feather
06. La Vita Fugge
07. The Perfect Machine
08. God Is Dead
09. The 25th Hour
10. Voices
11. Gutter Ballet (Savatage cover)

Fabio Lione - Vocals
Olaf Thorsen - Guitars
Federico Puleri - Guitars
Alessio Lucatti - Keyboards
Andrea "Tower" Torricini - Bass
Alessandro Bissa - Drums

An outer space artwork for cover album