Tolkien said not all those who wander are lost. Lance King has done a bit of wandering himself, having been the vocalist for multiple bands over his long and industrious career. King continued expanding his musical journeys by joining up with Ilium, an Australian power metal group with a bit of a history under their belts. "My Misanthropia" is the name of this union between King and the Aussies, and it certainly has moments of sounding stuck and misplaced, giving its flares of brilliance out in only temporary intervals. Its biggest fault is found not in its style, but the wishy-washy songwriting, which is consistently inconsistent. At times Ilium strikes gold, but "My Misanthropia" veers off and screws up the attractive musical model Ilium has at its disposal. Ilium stands on a cusp between Helloween and more melodic power metal bands based solely on "My Misanthropia," which is baby's first Ilium album. Lance King fits well into this mold, as his experience from having worked in multiple power metal groups leads to a comfortable transition to Ilium's open-ended vision. Parts especially emulating the Helloween-esque underpinnings make King sound like a doppelganger to Michael Kiske, an affinity not worth tears. King's vocal delivery is likewise synchronized to the variety of paces and foundations used on the record, finding no woe adapting to up-tempo power metal tracks or mid-paced, atmospheric numbers which populate the album plenty. I honestly anticipated King's vocals were to tax Ilium's style given his track record, but his consistency serves as the force preventing "My Misanthropia" from capsizing.
The songwriting, though ambitious, jumps on that grenade, often acting as the source of the periodic dud. Ilium's problem isn't a lack of variety-"My Misanthropia" has plenty-but a total absence of permanence between tracks. They have this awful habit of unleashing a mediocre tune in the middle of excellent songs, a pattern captured right off the bat when the mid-paced plodding of "Quetzalcoatl" sticks its head between the admirable title track and the blazing up-tempo power of "Penny Black." "Lingua Franca," another mid-paced bomb this time replicating Helloween's stupid side à la "Dr. Stein" without the childish fun, carries the torch from "Penny Black" to the incredible power metal spectacle of "Godless Theocracies." This variation continues once "The Hatchling" rolls around, and sure enough Ilium is back to farting around for a few minutes.
Only ones worth mentioning otherwise are "Orbiting a Sun of Sadness," a track which moves into an ethereal atmospheric territory that is really something spectacular, and the up-tempo magic of "The Cryptozoologist," whose speed and might make it the best cut here. The two songs paired between them slip back to dull measures, which unfortunately end up making "My Misanthropia" little more than a wash. Lance King sounds tremendous, and the instrumental competency of the group is outstanding, but the songs drop and rise at a pace that is too erratic to make "My Misanthropia" the album it could have been.