Crystal Throne have released Chantry Of Sacrifice, their second album, with a video for Tides Of Ages arriving alongside it.
The story is the spine of the record and the video is a condensed run through it. It is set in 5150. Hyldr, a war veteran and scientific project leader, wakes to find that Earth has vanished and that she is the last human in the universe, and is then sent back through time to find out why and to change it. The premise was already out when the album was announced; what is new is hearing how the French band carry it.
How it sounds: progressive heavy metal with the emphasis on the first word only as far as the structures go, the riffs kept traditional, and the vocal lines written to be followed rather than decoded. A concept record about the disappearance of a planet could have gone symphonic and does not.
The nine tracks are A Hero's Call, Children Of The Ruins, Tides Of Ages, Electrical Savior, Walls Of Silent Mourn, Antagonists, Insurgent Outcry, Chantry Of Sacrifice and Sleeping In The Void.