mrbandwidth

https://www.sonicperspectives.com/album-reviews/soen-imperial/

Seems this one is out there in this world...

Thank you, love discover great albums I missed!

This is his first album and best, the second one was not so good:

Well, they are more like Cats underwater... (Atlantis). Sorry, had to say it!

Well, here is the Japanese bonus track; not the best bonus ever TBH...

My other possible choice.

Excellent, I'm not fan of Battle Beast, but this is a real beast indeed, contender for track of the year to me.

Bonus Track:

Baton Rouge, I like their 3 albums. 2nd album (seems is not allowed to embed this one out of Youtube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Lb7DWylrk from the 3rd album (S/T, 1997):

'Midnight Empire', good title.

Formed by ex-singer of Amaranthe, Jake E, and ex-guitarist of In Flames, Jesper Strömblad. 01. Out Of My Life 02. No Halos In Hell 03. Battle From Within 04. I Am The One 05. Bye Bye Forever 06. Dreams Gone Wrong 07. Lost In Time 08. Kings Tonight 09. I Had Your Back 10. Blood Brothers 11. Hit Me 12. Man Of Eternal Rain Clip directed by Patric Ullaeus :

This one deserves more attention IMO, solid album:

Didn't know this band, I thought JD Miller was the name of some member, or a homage to the famous music producer J.D. 'Jay' Miller, but is just the result of Jack Daniels whisky and Miller beer, lol. Sounds good.

Best track there IMO:

Santa Cruz has become Santa Cr-U2...

From Japan:

Debut LP was very good. One to check.

I agree with most comments, it's more of the same, adding that the tracks this time are not as good as some in Monumentum or Armageddonize. You experience some deja vu's with several parts of the songs... The title "Paradigm" says it all, their model, while what they would have to do is a "Paradigm Shift" precisely. However wouldn't say it's crap, just okeysh; won't enter my top-5. My favourites are Blood wants blood, Never gonna be like you.

Classy AOR. Very good.

You could like some of these ones: Angels Or Kings: "Kings of nowhere", Baton Rouge: any of them (not recent), Code Red: "Incendiary", Cyhra: "Letters to myself" (ex-singer of Amaranthe + ex-guitarist of In Flames), Dare: "Blood from stone" (not recent), Degreed, any of them, Free Spirit: "All the shades of darkened light", Keldian: "Darkness and Light", Maverick: "Cold Star Dancer", Nordic Union: S/T (singer of Pretty Maids + singer/guitarist of Eclipse), Palace: "Master of the Universe", Seven: "Shattered", Sixx A.M. twin albums: "Prayers for the damned" and "Prayers for the blessed", The Magnificent: S/T, Tokyo Motor Fist: S/T (ex-singer of Danger Danger, Ted Poley), Vega: "Stereo Messiah",

Haha, well they say that because most of the songs of the album have some time (beginning in 2016), although the album itself has been released this year. So for them it's 'old' material already, and I presume have been creating new tracks (like the one above) while the album was finally being published. From their Facebook info: First Night was formed in summer 2016, after Reneck Sweet decided to put together a new band.Old friends Mikk Tivas ,Kristjan Aasamäe,who were In the band called Rising Sun, we're happy with material which Reneck had written and joined the forces Idea was to make a AOR/Hard Rock band,the genre that everyone loved. Reneck says:"i used to be a lead singer in the Rising Sun when we started the band in 2007.Shortly after i left to explore the world and Mikk took over the lead vocals. I returned to Estonia in 2016 and started writing new material, i've been writing songs since i was about 16. After seeing many AOR/Hard rock bands over the years i decided that's exactly what i want to do also. All the songs i have written with my acoustic guitar, then Mikk is adding ideas and producing everything himself like he did in Rising Sun Our first single "Dangerous" is out now and will be followed by "Out of the fire" etc. There are only few people who are listening this kind of music in Estonia but our intention is to promote ourselves outside the home country. At the moment i have written about 20 songs for First Night and from this lot we will choose our favourites".