“The year is 3006...Have you ever imagined how our planet will look? How the music we all love might sound and if the Sci-Fi movies we all love so much may just have become reality? Could you imagine yourself in a world without cars, electricity, mobile phones and computers? Could you imagine a world without HEAVY METAL?” To be honest, I could do without all the aforementioned things except metal, however, therein lies the basic premise behind New Universal Order, the new CD from what could well be termed a super group formed by bassist Magnus Rosen even before he left HammerFall. 

Beware though if you are attracted to this because you are a HammerFall completist as it sounds nothing like them. It does have more in common with vocalist Nils K Rue’s day job in Pagan’s Mind but even then that’s not the full story as X-World/ 5 are much more groove based than the Mind’s riff/keyboard soundings. Often yer more progressive metal takes forever to get to the point but here, X-World/ 5 say what they want to say in ten tracks and approximately forty-one minutes of pretty thumping metal. That’s not to say that New Universal Order is immediate because it isn’t in the slightest, this is one of those CD’s that requires work to fully appreciate but if you’re prepared to put it in, you’ll get plenty out. 

It could well be argued that all the songs are too one-paced, that the addition of loops and beats to heavy metal has been done to death – both of which I thought after a couple of listens but after living with the record for three weeks I now think somewhat differently. The guitar work is superlative from beginning to end and as was said recently on this very website (by me, admittedly) Nils K Rue is at the top of his game at the moment and as the cliché goes, could sing the phone book ... although one can see cries of over production heading the way of the vocals. 

The best songs are Cyberchrist which opens proceedings which, after three weeks of constant rotation is beginning to haunt me with its insistent build up and sneakily memorable hook line which could also be applied to Man Machine as well. Argonaut also stands out from the rest but do you know what? I reckon that the second instalment of X-World 5 (if there is one) is the one where they will really hit their stride but if you’re looking for something a little bit more grown up, go out and grab a copy of New Universal Order.

Simon Bray