If you aren't a card-carrying member of the Power Metal Fan Club then its probably best you leave this one alone. However if Helloween,
Angra and their similar sounding brethren are your cup of tea, then read on, read on.
Eyes of Shiva is yep, another power metal band and they sound pretty much like most everyone else out there, except going for more of a Stratovarius/
Angra thing with the blistering fast pacings and strange, yet tasteful orchestrations to flesh out their songs instead of the Manowar/Hammerfall route.
Produced by
Angra's keyboardist, Fabio Laguna and mixed by Pink Cream 69's Dennis Ward, the disc does turn out with a decent sound, although a little thinner than what would be preferred. It sounds better than most debuts in the genre, but doesn't hold a candle to the kind of lavish clean sound that the bigger bands enjoy.
The band is a capable one if unremarkable. Their singer Andre Ferrari has decent enough pipes but falls apart in places, and has little to distinguish him from a legion of others, well other than the fact his accent is a bit different than the Italians or Scandinavians. A nice thick accent can definitely set you apart, when coupled with some fantastic pipes, look no further than the fabulous Fabio Lione for a fine example of this, but it doesn't do much for Andre so far. But we must keep in mind this is their fledgling debut and all is not going to run perfectly on the first jaunt out. Too bad the material they have to work with wasn't tuned better before recording.
The album highlight is given away too quickly, in the form of a mystical instrumental called
"Essence", that is teeming with the sounds of flute and can just be summed up as introspective and beautiful, the percussion highlighting the twinkling breaths of flute in increasing intensity, the piano dancing right behind it which serves as the first moments of.
"Eagle of the Sun" which even equipped with such a memorable opening, manages to fall into a stint of boredom rather quick after that. It just sounds like something from a Strat CD, and is fairly generic overall.
"Lampiao" however is completely unique judging from the opening alone. This thing must have come straight in from Brazil because it is steeped in traditional sound before kicking into typical a power metal song, spiced by those strange foreign rhythms blowing in on southerly winds for the bridge that come across nervous and edgy. The lovely orchestrations colliding head on with the frantic guitar solo is a nice touch, as the electric takes shape and warps its sound over and again. This is likely the best cut of the bunch that is not an instrumental.
"Psychos of the Millenium" is once again, a typical sounding speedster track until some unusual percussion, frantic and bordering on psychotic, pops up about three minutes in. This is followed up with a slower pomp powered area that is coated with progressive touches, and flagrant vocals pushing the track on till the massive (but perhaps too quick?) conclusion.
The ballads are a complete waste of time, especially the cover of Heart's gorgeous classic song of desire,
"Alone". Andre Ferrari while sounds just fine hitting the higher notes and singing with a quicker pacing, but when required to sing slow and passionately, he sounds rather fruity, kind of like if Ricky Martin was doing the YMCA with Richard Simmons while wearing a fluorescent green bandana and matching speedos. And puzzlingly, this power band attempts to nail this track without any of that trademark "power" at all. The original recording had more "umph" and balls than this one, which this failing album filler whimpers safely across the finish line with no discerning stamp other than airing out the weakness of Andre so in-your-face, it is like a pink bullseye was painted on his back. Maybe he's just trying too hard to sound chick-like, but he's still a world's away from coming close to the brilliance of Ann Wilson.
"Pride" fairs better, since it is an original penned track by them for them so there's no legacy to try and hold up against, plus they keep Andre in soaring vocal mode and none of this quieter stuff that crumbles him so terribly. Still, it's more on the tedious side than it is soul stirring.
Eyes of Shiva pulls out the sinister card for
"Future" and it works for a minute or so until they go off on a very Strat sounding tangent complete with keys for the chorus. No bizarre spirals into South American musical folklore can be discovered here, however the last dwindling seconds of the song are deliciously heavy and comes across quite nice before it ends. They were onto something and it was a mistake not to further flesh this path out.
"Eyes of Soul", like other songs here, tries to put some of that Brazilian heritage into play for an unconventional opening, and they continue to weave that throughout this mid tempo effort along with more orchestrations tossed in for good measure and double bass drums and all that jazz. It has its moments but lacks that special something that would make it stick in the mind.
In fact the majority of "Eyes of Soul" (the album) is a hard won struggle between love and hate. The core of the majority of songs represented seemed ripped off of past albums by Edguy, Stratovarius, Helloween,
Angra, etc., yet are usually fused with a handful of very strange and "out there" moments that do end up setting them apart from the rest. As a gimmick, it's a good one, and hopefully for future albums they will mine this well heavier and represent more original sounding songs to accompany. Even the richest, most extravagant and otherworldly interlude is lost when everything surrounding is tedious at best.
Eyes of Shiva might be worth a sneak peek to those who have every other power metal release that has been issued this year. You likely won't hear bits like this anywhere else, but the majority of the music might just sound so familiar you will lose interest with repeated listenings, as I did. It is just too soulless and cookie cutter in the end, and it's a shame because they do have potential, it is just not fully realized yet.
Written by
Alanna Wednesday, October 20, 2004
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