Reviews
2006-12-25
Slovakia's Castaway have delivered quite a nice album here, mostly prog metal, with some darker tones reminiscent of doom and even folk, it's quite well played, has a nice feel to it, and with some tweaking, can be even better.
Musically these guys bring to mind the less virtuosic bands, these guys are less centered on showing off their playing abilities, their prog elements come though a smart use of keyboards and some complex passages, it works most of the time, such as the first track "The Wanting Seed", but in others, such as in the second piece – "Sanity Embraces", it comes off as a bit over complex, with too many rhythm shifts.
High grades go to the vocals, which have a certain edge to them, not as clean as most prog vocals, and the use of strong melodies in the songs, this makes the album work most of the time. One clear standout track is the one which bears the band's namesake, which has some folk sounding melodies and a strong use of keyboards.
Castaway reminded me a bit of Australia's
Vanishing Point, with their strong keyboard use and not overly complex melodies, but they probably could use a better sound and simplify several tracks, other than that, its obviously a good album for prog fans.
Alon Miasnikov
