Fans of
Helloween via Keeper Of The Seven Keys era will dig this one. Music wise and especially the vocalist sounding just like
Kiske (ex-
Helloween singer). Just add a little more progressive technicality and you really have a
Helloween clone band. This is not a bad thing in my opinion and there are enough differences that you wouldn't confuse the two bands. Say track three for instance.
"It's Time" starts off sounding like a
Watchtower tune of old but quickly gets back into the prog-o-ween of the other songs. The Power metal staples of Keys, Bass, guitar, drums, and high pitched multi-tracked vocals are present.
The production of the album is my only beef except for the annoying funk Bass popping here and there. Do yourself a favor guys and don't ever mix funk with Progressive Power metal again. It ain't working......AT ALL!
Anyway the production is a bit weak for today's standards but not annoying or bad so to speak. You can hear everything well enough but it falls short. This is, all in all an impressive debut. You can tell they are finding themselves a little bit and give them one or two more albums and they will be a force to be reckoned with. They offer a lot more than some of the Power metal drivel floating around these days. It's better than Stratovarious' new work that's for sure.
This will be one for the collectors out there to have, but the next two records will tell if they have the stuff to be one of the big boys.
All the songs are good except for the Title track oddly enough.
Meeting In The Mist is a ballad that just plain sucks. I mean, amidst the lilting sway of the acoustic guitar rhythms the Bass player decides to go for a Bass popping experiment. Bad....very very bad man.
Other than that song they all rock real hard! Very talented musicians all the way. Proficient and skilled. These guys are from France but I can't tell you who they are or what they do. My material lacked that info and their website lacks that vital info as well.
You can find out all the cool bio stuff and hear some MP3's on their website @
www.alkemyst.net
They are worth watching to see where they will go. If this debut is any indication then they will get up there real quick after this one. Just don't do that Bass Popping crap next time....it is a real buzzkill!
Written by
David Sunday, August 17, 2003
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