Review by Morpheus Kitami for Xandria - The Wonders Still Awaiting (2023)

Xandria is a weird band. There was one album of theirs I really liked, whose name escapes me and whose quality is unlike the band. Because Xandria, despite existing for the past two decades aping Nightwish and Within Temptation and anyone you might remember more, has changed vocalists and styles every album. At least as much as one can while still remaining a symphonic metal band. This one is special because everyone except founding member Marco Heubaum left since the last album. Some of those people were actually around for decades.
Stylistically, this album apes Nightwish - Dark Passion Play a lot. Specifically the big orchestra bits of The Poet and the Pendulum. The new vocalist sounds a lot like Anette if she was an operatic soprano...and with the ever so lovely modern electronic vocal effects. One wonders why they went to all the trouble of writing all this fancy music if they were just going to ruin the vocals like that. Might as well write the ten trillionth pop song released this year at that point.
Then again, it matches the lyrics. Special consideration has to be given to the sheer level of pretention this shit has. There are a lot of complex concepts that the lyrics want to address that it doesn't really do so. Opening song Two Worlds is a good example, seemingly your average song that seems like it's about being hopeful and dreams. Then it rapidly brings up fake news and Orwell before just sort of forgetting about it. It's trying to be deep and philosophical, but comes off superficial and self-congratulatory. Wanting to be deep without actually putting in the effort to be deep.
Now, this isn't necessarily to say it's a bad album. I like Dark Passion Play a lot, ergo I like this. But it's clear that Heubaum will always be the servant rather than the master. He's very good at making songs, but he needs someone competent to yell at him and say no, and that's not something he'll ever get. And somebody to write riffs, because you have heard all of them before, done far better.
Also, apparently Ralf Scheepers is on the third track but the other vocalist is a growler. Is Scheepers just a backing singer there? But why though?
Competent, but you've definitely heard it all before.