Ghost Machinery - Haunting Remains (CD)

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Ghost Machinery were formed in 2002 by Pete Ahonen, Burning Point's vocalist and guitarist, and Tapsa Pelkonen and Jussi Ontero, Wildcard's bassist and drummer-keyboardist. Ahonen's compositions were remarkable enough to help them sign a two full-length albums' contract with Sound Riot Records. Haunting Remains is the first of these two albums.
The band, like many other North European bands, plays Symphonic Power Metal which they prefer to call Neo-Classical Power Metal. There is a bunch of songs that fulfill all the factors that can make their debut catchy. There are speedy tracks with simple musical themes garnished by inspired choices in the backing chorus vocals (like in Temples Of Gold) and the keys (like in From The Edge Of The World), mid-tempo interventions, a ballad, an unexpected cover and numerous explosive guitar solos - Pete Ahonen has done a great job with the guitars not that his voice is not at least as satisfactory - plus a clean production.
The point is always spotting something special, something that can make each well-made release stand out of the whole of the rest nice (in the meaning of albums that are equally pleasant to the ear and easy to be set aside by the next album bought by the listener) albums; in this case something that could identify the album as something other than music resembling to early Sonata Arctica for example.
In Haunting Remains the pleasant surprise were the profound Hard Rock/Melodic Metal influences which brought another, great in my opinion, Finnish band, Altaria, in my mind.
Especially Down In Flames and Darkest Hour could be called Hard Rock songs if the instrumentation was less powerhouse. The fact that they chose to include a cover of Gary Moore's classic Out In The Fields makes me believe that this is not a plain coincidence. Note that Ville Laihiala (Sentenced) is in charge of the lead vocals in this track.
As I am mainly interested in Hard Rock and Power Metal music as a listener, I wish Ghost Machinery to find their own way not only in their homeland's music scene, that keeps on providing us with remarkable acts, but also in the global market.
- Album Highlights: Temples Of Gold, Down In Flames, Darkest Hour, Heaven Or Hell and Out In The Fields