Max Enix‘s “Beauty in Darkness” arrives as the follow-up to “Far From Home,” the double album that paired the French composer with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, and it takes a different approach to reach a similar scale. There’s no orchestra this time, but the record compensates with a deep bench of guest musicians and orchestrations from longtime collaborator Thomas Kubler, spread across an intro, an outro, six longer epic tracks, and two more radio-focused cuts. Enix wrote and composed the album himself, handling keyboards and piano throughout while working alongside a returning cast that includes guitarist Xavier Boscher, Soilwork’s Simon Johansson on rhythm guitar, Misanthrope’s Jean-Jacques Moréac on bass, and Pain of Salvation’s Leo Margarit on drums, essentially the same core lineup from “Far From Home” minus the orchestra.
The album is high-quality and follows the standards of progressive concept records in the best sense, with the narrative built like chapters in a single story, closing on a short, delicate piano piece that serves as a genuine resolution rather than a tacked-on coda. Where it really shines is in that narrative cohesion and in how well the harmony is used to reinforce it. This isn’t a record leaning on scale alone to sell its epic ambitions. The composition holds up structurally, and the orchestral versions included alongside the originals make that clear, showing arrangements sturdy enough to survive being reworked rather than depending on one specific sonic treatment to land.
The guest list adds real texture without overwhelming the record’s identity. Niklas Kvarforth of Shining and Nile drummer George Kollias both appear on the album’s heavier, more apocalyptic tracks, while Michael Herrington Onetwenty brings a rap and R&B presence that pushes the record’s genre-blending further than “Far From Home” attempted. Thematically, “Beauty in Darkness” is built around apocalypse and transcendence, bodies giving way to light and spirit, and that concept gives the record’s guest spots and heavier detours a reason to exist beyond novelty.
“Beauty in Darkness” is an ambitious, carefully constructed record, and the harmony-first approach to its bigger moments is what separates it from records that chase scale for its own sake.
