Album of the Week 29-2026: Galneryus – A Cry from the Sky Above

Galneryus is a band that constantly straddles the line between knowing what they are good at and delivering just that on one side, and getting too comfortable with their own style and sounding like they are on auto-pilot on the other. When they are on the former side of the equation, they are still one of the greatest power metal bands in the world. And while ‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ is not without its issues, it shows enough glimpses of what makes Galneryus so good to be a worthy addition to any power metal collection.

The Galneryus formula has arguably been clearly defined since their genesis, but certainly since current singer Masatoshi Ono joined the band in 2009. Pretty much every song on ‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ follows that formula: European-styled power metal for the verses and the generally massive choruses, interspersed with dense, knotty middle sections that warrant the progressive power metal tag for the band. Since the way the band colors in those sections varies from song to song, however, it will never sound like you are listening to something overly formulaic. The album is largely dynamic enough to justify its 65-minute runtime.

Upon first spin, my impression was that keyboard player Yuhki had written the entire middle section of the album. ‘Beyond the Sunrise’, ‘Break the Silence!’ and album highlight ‘To the Last Breath’ all have the progressive rock and eighties hard rock influences that Yuhki typically employs and that take the songs in slightly different directions structurally. ‘Break the Silence!’ was written by guitarist Syu, though, and its melodic hard rock meets power metal approach is just enough of a departure from the busier arrangements of the rest of the album to provide the perfect breather in the middle.

‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ has some of the strongest instrumental ideas that Galneryus has had in a while, with some of the riffs being among Syu’s best in many years. And yet, I sometimes find myself wishing that the album had been instrumental. This is no slight on Ono, as he sings very well, especially for a singer pushing sixty who smoked for a significant portion of his life. It’s just that the vocal melodies are generally very unimaginative and frankly predictable. Also, that distortion effect on Ono’s voice in the furthermore awesome, ‘Reincarnation‘-esque ‘Let No Time Decay’ is just unpleasant to listen to.

Some songs also go on for longer than they should have. While ballads typically aren’t Galneryus’ strong suit, ‘Echoes of Fate’ does at least try some interesting things in terms of structure. But then it drags on for at least two minutes longer than it should. ‘Without You’ is the customary closing epic, and though it features some great music, it really has no business being fifteen minutes long. It wraps up quite nicely around the ten-minute mark, but then carries on some more, and then, to add insult to injury, culminates in a minute and a half of “whoa-oh-oh”. Horrible. The solo section may be slightly overlong as well.

These issues could have been minor, but because ‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ has only seven proper songs – ‘Call of the Horizon’ and ‘Where You Were’ are the traditional instrumental intro and outro, respectively – anything that doesn’t quite hit the mark takes up quite a sizeable portion of the album. I’m also not a fan of this latter-day Kamelot thing where the intensity goes from 10 to 0 after the intro, which happens in a few songs. Apart from that though, ‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ is a strong work of power metal that is European in style, but not very common anymore in Europe itself.

Recommended tracks: ‘To the Last Breath’, ‘Let No Time Decay’, ‘Break the Silence!’

Order ‘A Cry from the Sky Above’ from nearly anywhere in the world at CD Japan: