CD review SURMA ‘The Light Within’

Surma, that is Viktorie Surmová (Bohemian Metal Rhapsody) and Heri Joensen (Týr) who founded the band in 2018. Both artists have already a lot of stage experience and both bring all their experience to Sumra.

‘The Light Within’ is Sumra’s debut and consists of 13 tracks. The title of the album already indicates it, Surma’s first longplayer is built on a positive mindset, which is perfectly reflected in the opener ‘Reveal the Light Within’. Most of the songs on ‘The Light Within’ express optimism, which isn’t a bad thing nowadays. A solid dose of optimism is what we need.

Musically, Surma have dedicated themselves to symphonic metal and they don’t rely on dull melodies. Instead they deliver solid compositions with songs like ‘The City of Winds’ where melodies are key but not boring. It is remarkable that Surma never gets lost in excessively long songs. Most of the tunes are between three and four minutes long, which makes the album an entertaining listening delight. Surma also finds a good balance of catchy melodies, cinematic bombast and harder riff power. A song that reflects this very well is ‘Until it Rains Again’, a highlight on the album.

‘The Light Within’ is a well done debut album. Although Surma don’t reinvent symphonic metal, they have enough passion and musical playfulness that makes fans of symphonic metal tempting to press the ‘Start’-button more than once.