For me an unknown band hailing from Vancouver B.C. and with already a debut
album called 'Blood, Steel & Fire' (2009) in their pocket. A three piece band
consisting of Johnny Ketlo (guitar/lead vocals), Sylvain Maltais (bass/backing
vocals) and Colin Furness (drums/backing vocals). Some guest vocals are from
Celine Derval. The first scream put me on the wrong foot immediately; very high
and false and my toes started to curl. I hope that he doesn't sing too much in
the high regions and fortunately he doesn't on the rest of the album besides a
few times.
To put in more aggression you hear a raw grunting voice several times for
example in the second track "Power Soul" and then the band really is at its
best. The normal singing parts are o.k. and that makes the songs very listenable.
The music is a mix of thrash, speed metal and aggressive power metal. You have
to like the several singing styles used and there are quite some nice shredding
parts like in the third track "Unwanted Hell". The progressive part in their
music is the variation of styles and how they melt these styles together. At
times I loose track of the complete picture and then a single song sounds a bit
incoherent. "Chaos Theory" is a softer song starting as a ballad with female
vocals of Celine Derval combined with Johnny's. The old school speed metal is
back with "Infiltrating the System" although the slowing down part isn't very
pleasant to listen to. "Shattered Illusions of Reality" starts with a
Maiden-like rhytmn and twin soli and turns into an average power metal track. In
"Of Past and Present" you hear that Iced Earth is one of their influences,
although they have not yet the same quality.
All in all this isn't a bad album and there's a lot of potential, but they have to
emerge the different styles used more and increase their song-writing skills.
Nevertheless my opinion about them got more positve listening to the entire
album and that after the first irritating scream... please don't do that
again on the next one...
