The Grip Of Time, whose cover art oozes vague seriousness mixed with underground charm, is the second album of the Danish hard rock / heavy metal band SEA. The band has been compared locally to BLACK SABBATH, JUDAS PRIEST and IRON MAIDEN, although the current release steers away from standard heavy metal and into the zone of experimentation, where heavy meets progressive, fast meets slow, and, ultimately, the good meets the bad and the ugly. "Rust" starts soft, atmospheric and melancholic, and gradually develops into a full-fledged hard rock song. The beginning of the song promises epicness in the palette of WATAIN's "They Rode On", which unfortunately never comes. As the song transforms in a good but uninteresting mid-tempo casual track, my mind feels cheated out of a great opener. "Once We Were Dead" is rhythm and guitar-driven, with a mellow chorus. The track likes to play with tempo and improvisations on top the main riff, and is probably my favorite song on the album. "Time Will Let You Know" starts off similarly to RAINBOW's "Ariel" and is meant to be an emotional yet heavy song, however feels uninteresting, generic and mediocre, despite the strong acoustic midsection and the impressive solo.

"Shout" fails miserably at being energetic and rebellious and ends up inducing melancholia. It appears as if written by a person who has never had the need to shout about anything in his life, and totally misses the mark of the entire context. Instead of making me want to "shout, just let it out", it instead makes me want to curl on the floor and suppress deeply the desperation that such a sad attempt at a happy song causes within me. "No Dawn" starts soothing and beautiful and shows attention, making up for the bad taste that "Shout" had left in me. However, again like with "Rust", all the buildup amounts to nothing much, as the song seems confused about how it is supposed to carry on after a good start. "Back To The Ground" is really enjoyable rollercoaster of fast and mellow sections with a little country and a little old school NWOBHM singing. "Sing For Your Right" mostly keeps up to the same formula, while also adding a bit more energy. "Dust Will Fall" is another successful rollercoaster of hard rocking and emotional and acoustic segments. "The Stranger Within" shines with a memorable underlying riff, although the song built on top of it does it no justice. The closer, "Sea", is a beautiful acoustic instrumental.

SEA play a beautiful blend of atmospheric emotional acoustic instrumentals, and hard rock. At least that is the part that works for them. Any time they turn to more mainstream hard rock or metal sound, it turns out bland and uninspired. Vocals are clean and powerful, but lack range, which definitely helps underline the boring portions of the album, where it sounds like the band is confused about how to finish the song, so the play the first generic thing that comes to mind. A poor song can be carried by a brilliant vocal, and a mediocre vocal could work fine in a brilliant song, but this is neither of those cases, as both music and vocal delivery sound boring and, at times, outright annoying. However, the songs that mix that harder sound with their organic, mystic acoustics, end up being powerful, memorable and enjoyable, not for a particular riff or lyric, or melody, but just for the contrast of the calm and the storm. The vocals are also much more suited to that style of singing - calm, atmospheric, creating power through context, not just showing power by trying to yell in the mic. Technically, the band is up there with the best of the young generation, and eager to prove it. Once they put a grand idea behind that hard rocking, and find a real meaning for the atmosphere they create with their soft playing, they are bound to create a masterpiece.