By Jonny Bakes
“Well, we’ve had one greatest hits album, yes, but what about a second one?” When you’re a band that have been around as long as Edenbridge, that’s exactly the kind of question you end up asking yourself. With a career that has spanned over 20 years and resulted in ten studio albums and three live albums, there’s a lot of music to take in! But fortunately, the band released their first greatest hits ‘The Chronicles of Eden’ in 2007 that covered the first five albums, and now the aptly named ‘Chronicles of Eden Pt. 2’ is here to provide an easily digestible form of the most recent five albums from 2008 to the present day!
But unlike some greatest hits collections, the track listing of ‘The Chronicles of Eden Pt. 2’ is entirely down to the fans. Through their voting, this collection of songs was selected to represent the last five Edenbridge albums through fan favourites from each album. That way if you happen to be new to Edenbridge, or you’re a fan who’s fallen out of touch with the band, you can be sure that the tracks you’re hearing really are generally accepted as the greatest hits. It also seems that on this occasion, the public opinion was pretty much in line with the band’s own as the voting was “more or less identical” to the songs they would have chosen themselves. This gave them the opportunity to tweak a few of the tracks to include some special previously unreleased versions just to keep things fresh and interesting!
‘The Chronicles of Eden Pt. 2’ is quite a hefty collection weighing in at an impressive 26 songs spread across two discs that form a time capsule of the development of Endenbridge’s symphonic metal stylings over the past decade or so. You tend to know what you’re getting with Edenbridge, which is the reason why the Austrian outfit has continued to be successful over their career, and that is consistently strong musical compositions with a generous helping of melodic groove partnered with Sabine’s soothing vocals.
Included in this collection are songs such as ‘Higher’, ‘Live and Let Go’, ‘Shiantra’ and ‘The Moment is Now’ all preserved in their original forms, but perhaps the more exciting thing to talk about are the previously unreleased versions that made the cut. One of which is ‘Higher’. Yes, I know I already mentioned it but that’s because it’s on the album twice! The alternative version is a very chilled out piano-driven version that feels like something you would come across in a jazz piano lounge. It’s certainly a bit of a break from the Edenbridge norm but I’m here for it! It offers a different perspective to the song and brings more emotion to the surface through its stripped back nature. There’s a couple of others hidden in there too, but if I explained those in detail then there would be no surprises left for you!
Overall, ‘Chronicles of Eden Pt. 2’ does exactly what it says on the cover, it chronicles this second chapter of the Edenbridge saga and it does it through a great selection of the strongest tracks from each album. If you’ve been looking for some more symphonic metal to add to your repertoire but aren’t sure where to start, then this compilation is a pretty effective way to try Edenbridge on for size. You never know it might lead to a dive into Pt. 1, and then the whole catalogue if you’re really keen…
- ‘The Chronicles of Eden Pt. 2’ is out now. You can get your copy, and loads of other Edembridge goodies, HERE.
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