This is a reissue of their 2010 release, celebrating the 15th anniversary of their landmark album. I had heard some rumblings about the band back then but never took the proper time to listen to them. 2010 was not a great year for Power Metal, it was way past the European invasion of the genre unfortunately. Several bands had some trouble gaining ground and some bands went the wayside after the huge boom from 1995 to the mid 2000's. SIGNUM REGIS is a six-piece Progressive Power Metal band from Senec, Bratislava, Slovakia. Back when this album was released they had Goran Edman as their lead singer. He is mostly known for his work with Yngwie Malmsteen on the albums ''Eclipse'' and ''Fire and Ice'', considered by many to be some of the last really good albums from the legendary virtuoso with 1997's ''Facing the Animal''.

You have to be a very very talented singer to sing with Malmsteen, I think there is absolutely no doubt about it. I am not a fan of the last 25 years of his career and the man himself but he has had a plethora of great singers like Graham Bonnett, Mats Levin, Tim Owens, Jeff Scott Soto amongst 245 other ones. I obviously don't consider Yngwie Malmsteen as a good singer but his past vocalist choices have had a profound impact of Progressive Power and Neoclassical Music since the beginning of the 80's. The songs are firmly rooted in the classically-inspired blend of melodic progressive metal the band has been playing since their beginnings. The classical music influences are most evident in the song structures and in the way the bass, drums, guitars and keyboards play contrapuntal melodies and rhythms that bring to mind the way instruments are used in a typical classical orchestra. The progressive elements lie more in the contamination of influences (classical music, metal, hard rock) and in the ambition of the concept than in the mere display of technical wizardry (though in each song there is ample space for dazzling guitar solos especially on the three instrumentals). The album retains a strong focus on the vocals, which are the “instrument” of choice for carrying the main melody of the songs. Goran Edman has a splendid voice, deep and soulful but at the same time powerful and with incredible range. His performance is very strong, especially on the most melodic tracks like ''Mystical Majesty''.

Filup Kolus' guitar work has a lot of arpeggiated, neoclassical triplet soloing, but rather than going off the rails and turning the songs into vehicles for wild, excessive leads, he finds a way to fit inside the context of this concise, punchy tracks without losing any technicality. You have a concise 40 minutes album so he crams a lot in so little. It's only 40 minutes long, for something in the Neo-Classical Power vein is a bit disappointing though, I felt it would have been better with a good 15 minutes more, more elongated songs could have been quite the blessing honestly. A 15 year old album that doesn't seem far off from the very best of the Power Metal generation of the last decade yet with a neo-classical twist that still doesn't get old.