Album “Follow the Cipher”

Follow the Cipher is the first, self-titled,  album of the Swedish band Follow the Cipher. The release of the album was 11^th of May. The 5 band members released 11 tracks on this album. And before releasing a few of them were already available, so the public had the opportunity to listen and “made up their mind” about this band and the music.

And talking about their kind of music, it’s not so easy to do. Sure Follow the Cipher is a metal band, but which kind of metal? I don’t know. I’ve listened to them a lot but I still don’t know. Sometimes I think power metal, but I hear also symphonic parts, guitar riffs and bombastic parts like you hear by bands like Sabaton. So I made the decision  , I just call it CIPHER METAL. And I think it is.

It’s a combination of traditional metal with a lot of modern influences. So you can hear electronic (industrial) parts in some of the tracks. But I have to say that  the drums are very well represented in all the tracks. And that’s one of the reasons I call it CIPHER METAL.

And there is the voice of singer Linda Toni Grahn. She gives Follow the Cipher this special sound. With her special, high and powerful voice she makes the tracks to masterpieces.

Follow the Cipher is Linda Toni Grahn (vocals), Ken Kangstrom (guitar), Karl Lofgren (drums), Viktor Carlsson (vocals, guitar) and Jonas Asplind (bass).

And now the album. When people ask me how does it sounds I only have to say, “listen to the first track”. The opening of the album , “Enter the Cipher” shows exactly where this band stands for. It’s fast, it’s heavy, the voice of Linda and the drums like I mentioned.

“Valkyria” shows how the voice of Linda sounds when she let’s herself go. It’s high but it’s never the level of screaming, and that’s special. And with the voice of Victor they make the perfect sound.

The album is never boring. Every track has something special in it. I asked myself every time again, how would the next track sounds. Sometimes it starts a little magic, like “My Soldier”, or melodic like “Titan’s Call”.

“A Mind’s Escape” is for me a different Follow the Cipher if I my say so. This song sounds even a bit techno. But it shows just the versatility of this band.

The last song is “Carolus Rex”. This song also done by Sabaton and is the right finish of this marvelous album.

And there is a track called “Winterfall”. I think it’s the oldest track on the album. It was this song I heard and from that moment I knew it, Follow the Cipher is a band I have to follow. It’s the best track I ever heard in my life. And yes, you can say that I’m not well or mad, but it’s just my song. I heard it and the only thing I saw was a picture of the band. But it was enough to fall in love with it. And how great it is you can find it also on the DVD. It’s even a live version. And it sounds like heaven.

But I was right. Now a few months later this is the result. A great, no,  magnificent album. Well done and well produced. And I’m happy for them. They are not only great musicians but also very nice people.

And yes, the rating. It’s a little bit difficult to do. It’s my number one album. And it’s a masterpiece. I saw ratings which were very high and that’s logical. On a scale of five it’s 5/5. But I prefer a always the rating on the scale of 100. For this one it’s a 98/100.

Thanks Follow the Cipher for this album!