We have some traditional Heavy Metal from Finland again today kids. Finland is a good place for metal and a lot of famous bands come from there, from NIGHTWISH to CHILDREN OF BODOM. Sometimes very brutal and dark, sometimes very melodic and whimsical, the Finland scene has also many other different and interesting things to offer and hopefully this is the case of the band BYRON that we are going to review today. The band’s drummer  Johannes Lahti comes from a heavy doom metal background and is the creator of this project. The first album was The Omega Evangelion from 2020 that had some good tracking in the Finland scene. 4 years later they have returned with their second album Chapter II: The Lotus Covenant using the same concept of the first album, a giant moster octopuss.

The latest album starts with the usually useless instrumental intro “Ouverture” that comes and goes and it does not leave any impression to the listener. Please use nice intros as part of a nice song and not by themselves as it seems that it was added as a filler. The album really starts with “The Lotus Covenant” and it is good Metal folks. Very much on the side of the traditional Heavy Metal with good guitar riffs and solos and everything else the package demands.  It also has a taste of California hard rock but nothing too risky or innovative. We follow with “Resignation” that has a long and epic intro and a good melody afterwards. The singer Johanna Eteläkari reminds me of Lzzy Hale from HALESTORM and this is not bad at all. The next one is ‘Sword of the Apostle” and we go more to the more melodic and softer side of the band. And this one is really nice. Great melody and acoustic background. The song goes into a crescendo for the heavy guitars to arrive in a nice riff bringing the raspy vocals. For me the best of the album so far.

“Sometimes Dead Is Better” is next and we have yet another interesting melody. The songs seem to have their own new ideas making them different from each other and the album more varied. This one has nice backing vocals in the ending. We go back with another great and whimsical melody that takes you on a journey into fantasy land with “The Golden Galley”. These are the songs that I am liking most on this album. Not necessarily the heavier ones, but the softer ones with a touch of medieval instrumentals and melodies that seem to be telling you a magic tale. The 7th song is “Return to Celephais” that I believe to be some city in the land of dreams as Google tells me. The song starts with a male vocal this time narrating, what seems to be from a radio, over a guitar riff. Later drums and bass join in and the man keeps narrating in the background like Orson Welles on War of the Words. The remainder of the song is a long instrumental filled with guitar dexterity and solos. We reach the end  of our journey with “The X” and the band ends with another good classic Heavy Metal kind of Hard Rock style.

The songs that got my attention however, were the slower acoustic ones. The band has competent musicians and a good vocal, but the heavy compositions fall too much on known territory and reminds you of a lot of bands. Not that this is bad, but it does not make them unique. A couple of treasures in this release and great potential.