Triosphere - The Heart Of The Matter
AFM Records
Melodic Progressive Metal
12 songs (54:00)
Release year: 0
AFM Records
Reviewed by Joel
Triosphere is a female fronted Progressive Metal band from Trondheim, Norway. I discovered the band actually through a review here on MetalReviews for 2010's A Road Less Travelled. Speaking of the female who fronts the band, Ida Haukland, has one of the more powerful vocals I have heard in awhile. Outside of Kobra Paige from Kobra And The Lotus, I have not heard many female singers with this kind of raw power. The whole operatic thing that many expect it is not present on The Heart Of The Matter.

My Fortress opens the up the disc with clean guitars, before some great guitar riffing and Haukland's powerful vocals come in. This song features one of many great melodic choruses, that highlights the power I mentioned in her vocals. Steal Away and The Sentinel are both mid-paced to faster songs. Steal Away is more straight forward and The Sentinel builds atmosphere with an intro featuring strings. The hugely melodic Breathless is next, a solid slower to mid pace groove, that is part AOR/part progressive rocker. Departure has a very similar vibe to Breathless, and personally I would have probably spread these two songs out over the course of the disc. Both songs though feature great choruses. The title track is next and features a huge choir intro, you can check out the song here at Youtube.

As I Call has a great lead guitar intro, and it leads into a mid paced song with a great groove throughout. Relentless opens with a beautiful clean dual guitar part before the song fires on all cylinders. This actually ends up being one of the faster songs on the disc, and one of the best. The Sphere features some creative guitar riffs throughout the intro. Like many songs earlier on the disc, great vocals and musicianship, and choruses that are easily remembered. If you need another example of Haukland's range listen as she hits some higher notes at the end of the song. Remedy is a solid melodic song with the drums having an almost march like feel to them in parts. The headbanging inducing intro riff of Storyteller is one of the best. The riff though leads more into a frenzied mix of clean guitars and heavier parts. One of the most progressive songs on the entire disc. Ok this is not very metal of me, but the absolutely beautiful Virgin Ground is last, and it is exactly that, beautiful. A simple clean guitar melody with Haukland's voice taking control of the song. A light falsetto is heard in the song and she pulls it off really well. A ballad for sure, a filler song? Not at all!

With The Heart of The Matter, Triosphere will hopefully establish themselves even more. Four years can be a long layover for some bands, but with this release, Triosphere will hopefully find new fans throughout the world. If you believe a female singer can sound as strong as any man, and does not have to sound operatic to get your attention, then Triosphere is for sure. Great melodic progressive metal, with equal parts of great musicianship, vocals, and choruses you will remember.


This disc is already released in parts of Europe, though North America will have to wait till December 2nd.
Killing Songs :
I enjoyed them all.
Joel quoted 86 / 100
Other albums by Triosphere that we have reviewed:
Triosphere - The Road Less Travelled reviewed by Aleksie and quoted 75 / 100
Triosphere - Onwards reviewed by Thomas and quoted 73 / 100
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