Review by Rexorcist for Kamelot - Karma (2001)

Kamelot's rocky history has practically come to a close with Karma, the album where they master all of the essentials of power metal and create something iconic.  It becomes clear that Kamelot recognized their mistakes from the previous album yet again, despite the fact that there was only one mistake on the brilliant Fourth Legacy: it wasn't very heavy.  Well after the intro, you're just plain blasted with heaviness.  Kamelot improved their technique in that respct, but the music itself is just as brilliant as The Fourth Legacy, if not more so.  And Kahn feels much more comfortable in the music he's singing for, so the lack of metal in his voice is adjust slightly to fit the melody so that he no longer has to struggle to go hand-in-hand with his softer voice in comparison to the vocal giants of metal.  And the rest of Kamelot didn't even have to adjust their playing for that purpose at all, just the heaviness.  Songs like "Wings of Despair" might feel standard, but the instrumentation makes up for that.  The ONE flaw of the album is that the music still feels standard for power metal, and it's noticeable.  But it's not enough to detract from the quality of the album and the noteworthy improvements the band went through.  Kamelot's Karma is a perfect album for power metal bands to draw inspiration from.