What do you get when you take the concept of good vs. evil or light vs. dark, take inspiration from musicals and film for the sound, add in some Symphonic Rock/Metal arrangements for the music and then turn all of the mentioned into a concept album? The answer is a band from Sweden who, on August 21st will be releasing their third album, which is a concept album that takes all of the mentioned elements, and creates a musical story out of it, and their name is THE MURDER OF MY SWEET.

Formed in 2007 in the Stockholm region of Sweden, this quintet of Cinematic Hard Rockers released their debut album in 2009, "Divanity", followed by a single from that album that peaked at #14 on the Swedish international single charts, which is a pretty impressive statistic for a new band.

2010 and 2011 was mostly about live performances at shows and festivals, and then 2012 was the year the second album, "Bye Bye Lullaby", was released to the world and now 3 years later, they are back with their 3^rd album, "Beth Out Of Hell", which tells an apocalyptic love story between good and evil.

Considered to be their darkest and heaviest album to date, this new album clocks in at around 73 minutes playtime, and the album itself is one long continuous tale told across 13 individual chapters/songs. The main focus of the musical style on this new album was to sound like a film or a musical, which is something they have always been inspired by, and now the chance has come for them to really make an album that sounds like one.

Having listened to this album a few times while thinking of the content for this review, I started to take note of the elements used in the bands unique Cinematic Hard Rock style, and I can safely say that if this was ever turned into an actual movie or stage musical, I'd probably go and see it as I did find myself really admiring what they did with the songs on this new album.

I think the reason it stands out to the listener is the over the top symphonic elements, which have been poured into the songs including the orchestration, the voice acting parts during a few songs, the choirs, and of course, the powerful melodies from the guitars, the drums and the very impressive vocals from the two vocalists on this album.

The vocal duties are shared between Angelica Rylin, who sings the majority of the vocal parts, and Daniel Flores, who is also the bands drummer and keyboard player but is also a good singer as well, and both take on the roles of the two characters in this story, which are Lucifers Daughter (played by Angelica) and the Archangel Michael (played by Daniel).

Throughout the 13 chapters/songs on this album, the melodies transition flawlessly from one song to the next, and the arrangements are altered depending on the tone of the chapter/song you are listening to. With every new song you listen to, the more you are pulled into it's cinematic sound to the point where it will leave a very strong impression on you due to how powerful and epically compelling each one sounds.

The track lengths of each chapter/song is also fair as well as they are not too long (with the exception of two songs) and not too short either meaning that each part of the albums tale can make the most of every second in the song to tell it's tale well.

As the production is concerned, this has been mixed and produced very well for an album of this type. Previous albums I have heard which use a similar musical style, have often fallen short from either lack of punch in the performance, or poor production techniques, therefore taking away the enjoyment factor of listening to the music. Thankfully that is not present here, as each track has been mixed well so you will never find yourself not enjoying it.

Any gripes? Sometimes the symphonic elements can be a bit too overpowering, often making it hard to hear the vocal parts from time to time, as well as a few of the instruments such as the drums and sometimes the guitars too, but thankfully there is plenty of punch in the performance to compromise for this so all is good.

Bottom line, this new album from THE MURDER OF MY SWEET has left a very strong impression on myself as a music lover as this is easily the strongest symphonic sounding record I have heard in the past 12 months since I started this music journalism job. It stands out to me as the elements used help to shape it into one epic sounding tale that will never sound boring or old no matter how often you listen to it, as each song makes use of the musical elements to create a truly amazing album, so thumbs up to the band, the amazing Swedes and of course Frontiers Records who always know how to pick quality bands to sign to their label.<