I would recommend it to those of you with an interest in highly conceptual releases,

Seyminhol are a French Melodic Progressive Metal act who have already sold twenty-two thousand copies of their previous releases. They recently signed with Lion Music and are set to release their latest album 'Ophelian Fields'. In 2015, the band adapted Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' to deliver a well-received album called 'The Wayward Son'. Now, three years later, the band have followed a similar process and idea to record their new concept album based on the Ophelia character (which for those unaware, also happens to be from 'Hamlet') that was recently released in late February 2018.

The album is definitely highly Progressive, alternating from slow and smooth melodies right up to rapid and heavy ones. The song titles cover the different acts and scenes of the theatre play, but from a more metaphysical and feminine point of view. It is musically rather interesting but very common and flat. The male singer does not bring much emotion or relief to the melodies which themselves don't stand out much above other more amateur bands.

It even sounds a little weak on the technical front and could have potentially been pretty much re-worked during the production phase of the album. Following on from that, I must point out that the album is also not overly pleasant to listen to because of the poor production values. Therefore, I must be honest and say that it has been difficult for me to listen to this thirty-six minute album, which is, by the way, pretty short for a full-length album of this nature (but in this case, is that a bad thing?).

Unfortunately, I can't promote this album very positively as I personally didn't really like it, but I would still recommend it to those of you with an interest in highly conceptual releases. For me, that type of album rarely works and this one was no exception to that (albeit personal taste) rule!

Julien Marbaix