This album was a real surprise to me, and the first time I heard 'To Mega Therion', I was
completely amazed. Perhaps the production and the pure musical skills may not show at all
points, but the feeling and the fingertip touch to the music is completely awesome! It is
a majestic piece of art we are served and the listener gets flooded by the music in many
of the songs, with massive choirs, atmospheric keyboards, brilliant pieces of lead guitars
and piano parts.

The line-up:
Piotr Wawrzeniuk: Drums, Vocals
Christofer Johnsson: Guitar, Vocals, Keyboards
Lars Rosenberg: Bass Guitar
Jonas Mellberg: Guitar, Keyboards

The intro is a good and calm entrance to the world of Therion with keyboards, horns and
other orchestrations. It is short, but very good. It leads straight on to the second song,
'To Mega Therion'. This song is extremely good, with deep, galloping guitars in the
background, and introducing the choirs, which have a dominant part in most of this song.
The choirs both sing the verses and some backings in the song, and the listener is introduced
to some highly thought-out and brilliant music. Even the lead guitars, which I normally
dislike, are good in the music of Therion (at least in many places in the music). In the end,
the listener is enjoying a ride on a magnificent journey with keyboards, piano, guitars,
rhythm guitars, drums, and other orchestrations, giving a moment of pure pleasure.

The third song starts with bass guitar, drums and keyboards, before the massive attack of
guitars and further programming. The vocals are also introduced, followed by the choirs.
This is also a great song, and I always like the fast galloping of the rhythm guitars in
the background. Then a dividing of the choir into the male and female section is done for
a short while, as a quick interludium, which is very good. The violins and the guitars in
the end of the song are also excellent.

Song number four is also good, but the profile of this song is not as marked, and it is more
easily forgotten. But the deep male choirs are perfectly matched with the brighter female
choir singing, and with the addition of the ordinary singing and the rest of the music, it
is simply good music! The slow chorus of the common vocals is also good, and the bass guitar
that follows is also great, leading on to a second chorus. The orchestrations with violins
and horns is very good as well.

The fifth song, an instrumental part, is good. Not much worth mentioning here, so I'll get
straight to one of the truly great songs, Nightside of Eden. The choirs, the chorus, the
style and sometimes brutal atmosphere, it is all good. But the best part is in the end of
the song, not dissimilar from To Mega Therion, where one is flooded by a high-paced drum
rhythm, with lead guitars out of this world! The style changes after a while, but with the
same concept: drums and guitars. It is superb throughout the song, except perhaps where the
guitars get a bit too bright, light and whining. But all together - a great song!

The seventh song is not as good, but that may have something to do with the fact that the
song follows the same concept as before, with harmony choirs, drums and rhythm guitars.
The song is instrumental, apart from the choirs, and soon leads on to the last 'ordinary'
song, Invocation of Naamah. It starts calmly and peacefully, but this is just an illusion.
The common singing is more brutal and straightforward even than before. After the choirs,
the ordinary vocals change into a more clear sort, followed by the forcing guitars. This is
a song I did not like at first, but now I believe that it is one of the best ones. The
characteristics of the music is the one of Therion's label, and it is performed in an
excellent way.

The remaining songs are somewhat different compared to the others. The ninth song is a
slow and peaceful song at a start, and the intro of acoustic guitars and keyboards is
very good. The song leads on to singing by two of the choir members, and they perform
stunning vocals. Also, horns and orchestrations by organs and other components are used.
The female vocals by Anja Krenz, and the male vocals of Axel Pätz, are the best parts of
the song, especially the female vocals are brilliant. Unfortunately, the instrumental parts
of the song get too much space. The piano section is good, but the lead guitar is not to
my taste.

Which leaves us with the outro, which is much more powerful than the intro, but it fits
in very well, and it has a good, solid sound giving the listener a worthy end of the album.

The way that Therion use double guitars all the time, with both guitars very strong, gives
the music a very full and rich sound, and the orchestrations and the choirs - well, they
do not exactly make the music less rich... A brilliant album!

Overall rating: 9 out of 10.