Eidolon

You know why, I just wonder how many keyboards this band sometimes uses together. There secret wish must have definitely been to make their fellow-countrymen of Summoning ashamed I assume. I’d at first thought checking a gothic metal band which finally seemed to have looked a tad further than the usual pop-mallgoth-female-singer-fronted crap would be a good catch but guess what, I was wrong. I don’t know about their other works, but this one is barely metal. Oh, and it isn’t particularly gothic, either.

It nonetheless starts promising with, after a few seconds of the mandatory synth ambiance written and recorded while having a piss, a solid melodic gothic metal number by the name of Lost. Clichéd title, dumb lyrics, but with a band which probably masturbated its brain for about ten seconds before coming with a moniker as inspired as Dawn of Dreams there was from the beginning little to be expected in this department. The music is fine however, compared to the bulk of the work the keyboard, though standing at the front row, isn’t too overwhelming, the singer has a nice growled voice and at 3:03 there’s the only riff really worth remembering of the whole album. All in all the song may remind of To/Die/For in their less corny moments, what for sure isn’t the top of the crop, but still enjoyable. Now what do you expect? This was a lure.

First the growls, which were probably the most interesting element, will be progressively disappearing as the album plays on, to be replaced by standard pop-ish clean vocals. No, this isn’t the deep baritone of a Peter Steele or Andrew Eldritch, that’s elementary wannabe emotional litany with absolutely no power nor charm. Then, the synthetic keyboards quickly become overwhelming to the point they’re completely drowning the guitar, which isn’t playing anything worth a mention anyway so this isn’t a big loss. Eventually, if there’s supposed to be a genuine drummer on this album... well I’ve been listening to metal and goth stuff for years now, don’t you think I’m unable to recognize a machine when I hear one? I’ll concede, with a great deal of indulgence on SOME tracks there may be indeed real drums, but on most it’s either a machine, either a very bad drummer with very badly triggered drums. In any case all I can say is, it’s not pleasant.

The Wind’s Bride? Nothing metal in this song, come on you just listened to The Sisters of Mercy’s Heartland and thought it would be cool to include an hypnotizing, repetitive piece of pop-indus-goth minimalism in your beautiful record, but you just forgot the most important point in Heartland is it’s a good song. Do We Know? Do you know, it’s total sugar orgy here, not to be listened to while digesting. Coma? The title says it all, stupid plodding drums and bass, keyboards directly borrowed from Disney, the growls are back but they won’t save it. Passion? That’s precisely what’s lacking here, though surprisingly the singer for once has a genuine try at a true deep, dark goth voice, alas it doesn’t last for more than a couple of bars. The end of the album will be a tad better, especially with Your Eyes which is a faster and, well, a bit more metal. Hey, weren’t it for the keyboard abuse it would almost rock, in fact. Far more anyway than the following piano-for-dummies instrumental which makes the release plunder again into the deep mud pool of pseudogoth acts whose best idea is when they split up – what Dawn of Dreams did, by the way.

Well, those 46 minutes of synths galore were still better than Within Temptation, so my hopes must have been fulfilled in some way I guess.

Highlights: Lost