This is Apollo’s solo debut, the first album where he decided to go out there alone and present something he did on his own with total artistic freedom.
The sound and the style of “Waterdevils” is no surprise, as you’d file it under “classic rock”, actually some songs are very close to Spiritual Beggars’ stuff-they actually play on one of them- but you might also recognize a few… Firewind touches. All compositions are superb and will easily have you sing along when the stereo, or cell phone, or whatever device you use to listen to music, is off. “Waterdevils” has also amazing cohesion from beginning to end and the playing on it is great.
Those are some footnotes that you will keep listening to the album for the first time without knowing too much about it, like who is playing on every song, that’s something his record company did a great job keeping it a secret without mentioning anything on the press release. And that’s the surprising thing, because there is not a single track on there that was recorded with the same lineup of musicians with another. Why this happened is something that Apollo explains in his interview, which you will read shortly. Just, let me tell you that the album features two ex-Firewind members, Mark Cross and Michael Ehre, Spiritual Beggars minus Michael Amott recorded one song and George Rain deserves credit for contributing on two of the albums’ best songs (“Chasing Shadows”, “Fallen Endlessly”). The cover on “Stop”, originally by Phenomena, is the icing to the cake.
What we definitely keep from “Waterdevils” is the amazing performance of the singer, the amazing songs and the overall quality that makes you listen to it again and again. Apollo shows that he can create great stuff even on his own, sticking to his guns and his beautiful voice. All his fans will be amazed and it’s definitely one of the albums I was the most curious to listen to and I put in my top list for 2016.
