With two months left in 2011, I finalized my list of the best metal releases of 2011, and then I listened to Lance King’s debut solo album “A Moment in Chiros” and it was back to the drawing board. King made a name for himself in the metal underground as the lead vocalist of Balance of Power, Avian, and Pyramaze. Well let me tell ya, ‘A Moment in Chiros” blows all of those performances away! Providing the musical talent on ‘Chiros” is a “who’s who” from the world of progressive and power metal, such names as Jacob Hansen (Beyond Twilight, Invocator & Anubis Gate), Kim Olesen (Anubis Gate), Michael Harris (Darkology, Thought Chamber), Tore St Moren (Jorn), Fred Colombo (Spheric Universe Experience), Markus Sigfridsson (Darkwater / Harmony), Kevin Codfert (Adagio), Michael Hansen & Shane Dhiman (Phonomik), Morten Gade Sørensen (Pyramaze, Wuthering Heights), Elyes Bouchoucha, Malek Ben Arbia, Anis Jouini  (Myrath) & Mistheria (Bruce Dickinson).

    King uses the phenomena known as the “11:11 time prompt” as the concept of “Chiros”. I won’t go into the concept of 11:11, just Google it; it makes for interesting reading.

    Back to the music! King’s vocals have never sounded better here. Every song has an incredible sense of melody in the vocals and a backdrop of heavy and powerful riffs. The album begins with a spoke word detailing the mysteries of the 11:11 time prompts and then kicks into the appropriately titled “A Sense of Urgency” which features a soaring vocal melody within the chorus. “Awakening” has a headbanging groove and King’s vocals have a crystal clear clarity and power here. One of my favourite tracks, ‘Manifest Destiny’ guitar intro has an almost middle-eastern feel to it and King lets his impressive vocal range loose. The album slows down momentarily with the epic piano driven “Kibou” but “Infinity Divine” brings the crushing riffs and double bass drums back with a vengeance and never looks back. “Joy Everlasting” has a classic metal riff and guitar melody and “Sacred Systems” has a very cool use of sequencing effects and drum patterns and features a killer guitar solo. On the albums final track (11:11) “Transformation”, the music, vocal effects and King’s delivery remind me of Nils K. Rue of Pagan’s Mind, and a perfect way to end this amazing musical journey. It should also be mentioned that Lance has chosen "Human Trafficking" (sex slavery), one of the fastest growing criminal activities worldwide as the charitable cause he would like to champion, profits from this album will go to efforts to abolish this slave trade worldwide through an organization called "NOT FOR SALE"!
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/about/slavery/ 

    So go out and buy this album! You will NOT be disappointed! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go re-configure my top 5 metal albums list! : p

Rating: 10!!!