2007-05-24
This Indian band's debut full length is an interesting combination of technical and melodic death metal, it has some strong playing abilities working for it, but some inexperience in song writing that hinders several songs; overall – it's a good album for melodic death fans.
A few things: the name of the band and the album's cover- are bad, not very memorable and quite uninteresting, a band with music like this should put more effort into their image, and it's one of the things that will endear it to an international audience. Musically, there's not a lot to fault, as for the sound too – crisp and quite well done, not overly bombastic, but quite fitting for the band.
The band's strength's and weaknesses are evident from the title track which opens the album – very good playing ability, with some really impressive melodic guitar work, solid rhythm section and some nice background keyboards, this song is among the better ones here, it's not overly complex, and the pre-chorus is very good indeed.
The next track – "A Perfect Pseudocrity", bares some of the band's weaknesses – the song is more a mix of ideas than a real song, and though the playing is good enough to carry it through, it does feel as if the band needed to simplify thing a bit, and also try and merge the tune and lyrics a little better – they do come off as too complex for their own good.
The instrumental parts let the band shine real well, "Mindwarp I+II" just come off as quite accomplished neo-classical melodic death, and it's there that you can here the talent these guys posses; they just need to flesh out more the ideas before they turn them into songs. Most of the time they do get it right – and "Acrid Arts" is a good example of that.
So…a different cover, a name change might also be good, and a bit more glue inside the tracks – and this band is going places, as it is – it's still a good melodic death metal album with some strong craftsmanship, and the potential already shines.
Alon Miasnikov
