AFTER INFINITY – After Infinity (2024) *HQ*

AFTER INFINITY is a new Finnish band formed by guitarist and songwriter Zsolt Szilagyi, known for his work with excellent outfits Dreamtale and Frozen Factory. AFTER INFINITY’s music encompasses a wide range of metal styles, featuring dynamic compositions that seamlessly blend heavy guitar riffs, epic orchestrations, and powerful vocals with soft piano melodies and soulful singing.
The project upcoming debut album, self-titled “After Infinity“, is a really entertaining collection of songs perfectly arranged, and featuring different, well known male / female vocalists from the Scandinavian scene.
The core of “After Infinity” is melody, and more melody.
Some tracks are melodic metal produced with an Allen/Lande punch to make comparison, others add a progressive metal attack with busy instrumentation, others a light power metal catchiness, and some straight rock&pop skeletons with a ‘heavy’ playing.
Take as example a song like ‘Without You’ (feat. singer Nitte Valo of Dreamtale, ex-Battle Beast): it could be a song written by Roxette or Heart in the ’80s – but here wrapped by a punchier production. All is awesomely mixed, mastered & produced.

The album opens with “Calm Before the Storm,” which is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a very beautiful piano-driven intro track, not too slow, yet slow enough to draw the listener in and lure them into what is to come—off to an excellent start! There’s then an upbeat, heroic, power metal turn immediately thanks to the guitar lines of “I Surrender to You.” I keep expecting this to be a cover of the old “I Surrender” track from Rainbow back in the day, but they are absolutely nothing alike, as this is a pretty quick-paced song with speedy drum beats and traditional metal vocals from Italian Leonard F. Guillan.

Things take a turn for the epic with “A Game of Chess,” which starts on a slower-yet-driven note, with a strong synth push before the vocals from Mikael Salo come in and the drama kicks up in the fills, with an emotional chorus and really evocative lyrics. I love the melody in the chorus, while this one also includes chants and shouts with traversing guitar lines that create a solid base of interplay for the keyboards.
Next up is another track featuring Guillan on vocals. He really has such a traditional metal voice, so it’s nice to see a more tender side of him in “Do What You’ve Got to Do.” This is a pretty heartbroken melodic rock ballad, so if you love a good old fashioned cheesy song about someone leaving you, this is a great track. Also, the guitar work by Zsolt is stupendous.

“Crown of Clowns” is a highlight, just because it has everything: a solid musical foundation—particularly in the synths and guitars—upon which there are excellent vocals (again from Mikael Salo), with insightful lyrics and a solid high-energy kick that makes this an awesome track to blast when you need to perk up a bit, complete with some djenty bass.
If modern music these days doesn’t have enough guitar solos for you, then look no further than “Capital Punishment,” which is the guitar-solo-infused instrumental track, which works brilliantly as a palate-cleanser halfway through the album. Great stuff akin Racer X.

This is followed by the aforementioned midtempo ballad “Without You,” which features Nitte Valo. The key change is cheesy as hell, in the best sort of way and this song really feels as though it was pulled straight out of the ‘80s due to the ambience and overall soundscape.
There’s a dramatic spoken-word intro, followed by a really classic, near-heroic vibe in “The Power Beyond His Fight,” which has Stephen Baker of Frozen Factory on guest vocals who does a brilliant work. There’s a really grand choir to give the song a kick, where you can hear some of the other guest vocalists wailing.

Te album ends in great form with another power ballad – ”Two Restless Hearts” (feat. Nitte Valo & Juanma Draven) – with a rock&pop foundation yet still powerful. It’s a very cool duet showcasing a more tender side of Nitte Valo’s voice – she’s such a powerhouse, so it’s nice to see that she can be more gentle when needed, though that certainly doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of drama in the track, which is only emphasized by the backing orchestrations and percussion. Great one.

“After Infinity” is a pretty darn good piece of melody, powerful performances & musicianship and a great display of talent from the Finnish scene. The quality of the songwriting is really high-level and it’s always nice to see an artist get to show off what they can do outside of their other bands.
In this case, I think it’s safe to say that Zsolt Szilagyi certainly knows what he’s doing when he’s both playing and writing music. Very well produced, “After Infinity” will surprise many.
Highly Recommended

01. Calm Before the Storm
02. I Surrender to You (feat. Leonard F. Guillan)
03. A Game of Chess (feat. Mikael Salo)
04. Do What You’ve Got to Do (feat. Leonard F. Guillan)
05. Crown of Clowns (feat. Mikael Salo)
06. Capital Punishment
07. Without You (feat. Nitte Valo)
08. The Power Beyond His Fight (feat. Stephen Baker)
09. Two Restless Hearts (feat. Nitte Valo & Juanma Draven)

Roi Partanen (Everfrost) – Bass
Zsolt Szilágyi (Dreamtale) – Guitars, Keyboards

Vox:
Nitte Valo (Dreamtale, ex-Battle Beast)
Mikael Salo (ex-Metal de Facto, ex-Everfrost)
Leonard F. Guillan (ex-King Company)
Stephen Baker (Frozen Factory)
Juanma Draven (Carved in Ashes)

BUY
www.unomas.fi/en/category/1773454