In the beginning, I was quite surprised hearing this album had an old-school 'look'. Not ever day do 'new' bands come up with such albums, to tell the truth. Then, I figured out STONELAKE consists of members (mostly) aged 38-42 years old. And, even if World Entry shows an obvious attempt to 'transfer' old shit to the new era via specific songwriting/production, it's quite unclear how many - old and 'fresh' - fans will get what the band aims to. World Entry is both an interesting but also weird album.
STONELAKE's main duo comprises of Jan Akesson and Peter Grundstrom. They've been knowing each other for many years, and this is obvious while listening to the album, since there's profound chemistry between them two. This Swedish band has already released one album in prior, Reincarnation in title. For this specific CD I read lots of good comments in the Web, raising my appetite even higher towards World Entry. And, the time has now come...
Enlisting the services of Jaime Salazar (ALLEN/LANDE, THE FLOWER KINGS) on drums, World Entry sees the quartet flirting on-the-edge with melodic Hard Rock the Scandinavian way; but not in a Frontiers-related 'path'. STONELAKE's scope seems to primarily bring on the 80s 'melodic' Rock style in the foreground. Pompous keyboards, high-pitched vocals from Grundstrom and furious guitar themes by Akesson leave the band on top of trying to perform something more than just Hard 'n' Heavy music. As if TNT, JOURNEY, (heavy) BOSTON, (80s) DEEP PURPLE and JACOB'S DREAM(!!!) would jam on a beautiful spring day. The album features various tempos and -of course - includes a very good ballad called Words Are Not Enough. On the other hand, tracks like Magic Signs will nail you down at first hearing. The solo work provided by Akesson is quite notable, while Grundstrom uses his voice with much of experience, exchanging fury and passion anyway he wants it. To hell and back again: the use of 'personality' keys in this album gradually rises to be the strong ace of World Entry. Some will surely see enough of a DREAM THEATER influence in the keys' arrangement, and there seems to be a very good reason for this.
World Entry is not a typical album, genre-free. It bears the unique charisma of - gradually - winning over your ears. STONELAKE seems to be a rather hard working band in terms of composing/recording. And the question is: do you want to get away with this fact? Even Euro Power Metal fans will like this album.