15 years since "Secret Society" was released!

Agree. I think SS could be the most underappreciated album since the reformation. It's got some great, rocking tracks on it. It sounded "different" when it first came out, but now when I go back to it, it's just a good, upbeat rock album for the most part.

I fully agree with that! A true masterpiece.
I remember very good the contrast between Start From the Dark and this one. When Europe came back, I reeeeaally had to get used to SFTD with it's dark/depressing sound and downtuned guitars. I didn't like all the songs, maybe half of them. Maybe not even. I missed the melodies, the big choruses. The keyboards!

But then Secret Society came out and I remember I liked it immediately. It opened kinda weird, I mean SS is kind of a weird song , but a cool one. With cool keyboards! Mic's little solo even sounded kinda progressive...which I thought was super interesting. Always the Pretenders had this awesome chorus that you could sing a long after one time hearing it. Exactly the things I missed on SFTD!

The Getaway Plan, awesome. Let the Children Play, super awesome. (They should play that song again now that I think of it!). Forever Travelling and Brave and Beautiful Soul, just lovely. Such nice songs and hooks. And then the cherry on the cake: closing the album with this masterpiece called Devil Sings the Blues. Such a beautiful song when I heard for the first time. I remember it immediately got to me. It sucked me in. And ofcourse Norum's brilliant 2 minute solo to end it all in a fade-out...
All of the above: I didn't had that with SFTD. This was a new style but also with much more classic Europe things in it. The things I missed. I also still think Secret Society is their best produced album to date (since the reunion). It sounds great!

So, there you go, my two cents on Secret Society
By the way, SFTD really grew on me but it took quite a while. Years actually. But looking back now, I appreciate it a lot more than in 2004. It has a lot more melodies than I thought at the time. I guess that's the fun part and beauty of music, isn't it? First you dont like it, but years later you do