Artist: Neverland 
   Title: Schizophrenia
   Label: Escape Music

'Schizophrenia' is the latest release from Swiss Power Metal merchants Neverland and sees the band return to form after a three-year absence.

Led by the powerhouse vocals talent that is Jean-Marc Viller, the band aim to put the Switzerland back on the Power Metal map.  As the album opens up with the title track ‘Schizophrenia’, from the off it's clear to see the bands intentions are to show that Switzerland isn’t all chocolate and cuckoo clocks, it also rocks!  With this seven minute epic full of rampaging guitars, a pounding rhythm section and a vocalist that can hit all the right notes, it's exactly what you want from a Power Metal band.

The album continues with ‘When Darkness Falls’, another thumping bass fuelled track that like a wild stallion, stampedes its way through the track and with the unyielding riffs of guitarists Andy Mislin and Daniel Huber, together with Viller showing he can bring it down a notch when needed as well as unleashing the power, all go to make this one of the stand out tracks of the album for me.

'Mysteria' is another superb insight into the Progressive Power Metal genre as the track opens up with the majestic keyboards of Oliver Benz.  Then in comes the rest of the band to really push the boat out on this one.  As Benz keyboards remain a dominant feature of the track, it’s the rhythm section of Boris Stoll on drums and Roland Jost that put the meat on to the bones of the track, with the guitars of Huber and Mislin stamping their mark on the track with some magnificent solos.

The band show they have a heavier edge to their sound as they turn up the grind level a touch with ‘Anger’, before bringing things down to a more sedate level with the soaring tones of ‘Anguish’.

It's back to the more traditional Progressive Power Metal with a couple of my favourite tracks the excellent ‘Take My Advice’ and ‘Buy Your Dream’, with its booming bass lines is just superb. 

The band go into full on metal mode with the driven ‘Neverland’, a real barnstormer of a track that has it all soaring keys, breakneck guitar riffs, a rhythm section to die for and a motivating force in Viller’s vocals.  This same motivating force is carried on throughout the entire album right through to the final track ‘Brave Warrior’, another touch of metal on metal and brings to a close another great album from these Swiss masters of metal.

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