PROGRESSIVE DARKNESS
Allow me to take a second a pour myself a little drink… Ah, there we go.
Rum.
Yum.
First off, someone please tell these guys that it’s no longer cool to be illiterate. It’s spelled
M-O-O-N-L-I-G-H-T. OK, you’re trying to be cool and different, gotcha. Moving on. One thing I really liked about this CD was that the bass guitar had a very prominent spot in the lead playing, almost kind of Iron Maiden-ish. One thing that got pretty annoying though is that there is only one song on the whole CD that is under 5-minutes, and even that one is 4:39. I don’t like extremely short songs, but how many times can you play the same damn riff over and over again? With all due respect to the riffs, they are awesome – very catchy. The vocals are mixed, some female, some male…some singing, a lot of growling. The growling got old real fast and started getting REALLY boring. I’m into some bands who do the growling/singing thing, but I just wasn’t into the growling this time around, and to be honest, the singing could have been a little less Robin Hood-ish, it just sounded kind of prancy. Brought images of
Robin Hood: Men In Tights to mind. The intro to the first song, "Fantasy," I’m not going to lie, it was pretty gay, if there is anything worse than prancy Robin Hood singing, its prancy Robin Hood singing without any music behind it (sorry, the tambourines and chorusy humming doesn’t count).
The CD is not all bad, despite how I may have started this off, in fact I think the musicianship is incredible, especially the bass and guitar playing. The songs themselves have a mythical feel and story-line behind them, almost reminding me of YNGWIE MALMSTEEN (you know, without the 128th note speed picking). These guys know how to lay down some really great rhythms and the skill behind the lead playing is definitely there. Unfortunately, the songs are not unique in-and-of-themselves. Most of the tracks sound pretty much the same with few variances in the overall sound. I like my music to be sort of dynamic. The slower parts had me getting kind of sleepy, although I won’t blame that completely on the music, it could have something to do with the fact that it’s 2:45 AM, or the Bacardi I just drank. Make your own judgement.
Overall I’d say it’s not terrible, but it’s probably not something I would go out and buy for myself after hearing it on the radio…partially because it’s not radio material, at least not here where I live. We’re much more concerned with playing EMINEM on our "Rock Radio" stations. I think that even though there isn’t much of a market out there for fantasy storyline metal, I think with a good push from a record label that isn’t afraid to spend some money, these guys could build up a pretty strong following and maybe make a few bucks.
