Auspex - Mysteries Of The Stars

2005-10-01

This CD is actually more of an EP or demo for a rather new French band, starting out in 2001, with just three sings in it, two clocking at the 6 minute limit and the last one at 11 minutes.

The band creates a colorful combination of power and orchestral metal, with quite complex ideas and riffs, and a Sci-Fi/Fantasy oriented them, as clear from the CD's cover.

I will give both the positive and the negative sides of the album, first, the musicianship is top notch, and I do mean that, impressive technical skills all round, keyboard and guitar work are some of the most virtuosic I've heard from such an unknown band, the guitar leads are magnificent and intertwine nicely with the good rhythm section and richly layered keyboards.

The sound's not bad at all, much better than can be expected, and there we reached the two rather minor set backs the band faces.

The use female vocals, and they certainly have a talented vocalist, not as operatic as Nightwish's vocals, but a good, solid rock vocal, the problems are that she's too low in the mix, her voice is sometimes drowned by the over whole richness of the music, and second, she needs to work on the pronunciation of the English lyrics at times, and state them more clearly, it comes to light pretty fast when the name of the first track, Guardian, is pronounced more like –Go-rdian,

Other than these two minor glitches, the band have quite a future lying ahead if they play their cards right, improve these minor faults, get a rich, epic sound, maybe crisp up the band's logo a bit, and get a proper label, and they might go far, they have the talent for it.

Alon Miasnikov