Future of the Past

Sweden’s Destiny have been around for just about forever yet have been relatively unproductive in releasing new material. This 2004 release was just their fifth in nearly twenty years. Fronted by Kristoffer Göbel, who also is the current Falconer singer, the newly reformed Destiny finally put out a new album filled with nine very solid traditional heavy metal tunes. I’ll admit to having heard very little of their old stuff, so as far as changes in their style I can’t really comment. I will say, however, that this disc, while a tad repetitive and perhaps “safe”, would be a worthy addition to most traditional metal fans’ collections.

If you’ve heard Göbel’s work with Falconer then you know what to expect from him here. I tend to think he sounds slightly better here, the reason probably being that, fairly or not, most Falconer fans will always compare him to Mathias Blad. With Destiny I knew not what to expect so his vocals were a nice treat, fitting the music very well. His range on display here is more in line with Falconer’s 2005 release, “Grime vs. Grandeur”, meaning he is all over the place – mid-ranged, some high-pitched screaming, even a few hints of growling in a couple spots. For some vocalists “all over the place” equates to sucking but Göbel does it very well, so no worries. If you truly dislike his work in Falconer, and not just because he isn’t a Blad clone, then you aren’t likely to enjoy his work here either.

The songs backing Göbel’s work are all quite good. Most of them fall squarely into the traditional metal category, that grey area into which quite a bit of stuff gets grouped. There are traces of power metal here and there but this stuff really isn’t power metal, and to call it such is misleading, so I won’t do it. Rarely do things ever get going very fast, as most of the songs are mid-ranged chuggers that rely on a solid groove and Göbel’s solid vocal work. The first two songs, “Holy Man” and “Sabotage”, respectively, are especially good. The third tune, “In the Shadow of the Rainbow”, is a semi-ballad about nuclear war and actually works pretty well (I enjoyed it). “Flying Dutchman” is another good example of the quality material on this disc, as is the closing title track, a song perhaps featuring the power metal influences most prominently.

Essentially what we have here is 50 minutes of solid, if unspectacular, heavy metal. On one hand, things can get a bit boring every now and then – perhaps a nice speedy thrasher would have broken things up. On the other hand, however, we do get nine songs of pure metal and no filler. There aren’t any throw-away tracks for a change, and thankfully they left out all of those stupid intros and instrumentals that bands these days seem to love – you know, the asinine 50 second intro tracks with ambient noise and whatnot. Nope, what we have here is pure unadulterated metal, no frills but no crap either.

Destiny have also just released a complete re-recording of “Beyond All Senses”, one of their older works from way back in the day. Apparently they even rewrote some lyrics and portions of some songs, an interesting choice and something I don’t believe I’ve come across before. Assuming a massive production like “Future of the Past” got (no problems with it at all) and with Göbel’s terrific vocal work it will likely be something on my “to hear soon” list. In the meantime, if you can find this release I’d recommend it to fans of traditional metal, perhaps even to power metal fans who don’t always need all-out speed, keyboards, and double-bass drums in their music. For some reason it can be a little hard to find but it’s worth tracking down.