The Book of Fate

Daksha is a young band from Argentina, playing epic power metal influenced by Rhapsody, Angra, Gamma Ray, etc. and I can also feel some progresive influence sort of Dream Theater and Symphony X. This first EP sounds pretty good and shows the band has potential.
The EP has 6 tracks, two being of the prelude/interlude type. It starts with ARCANE LAND, a 2 minute instrumental track consisting of mainly several layers of keyboards with a symphonic feel including strings, "ahhhs", etc. and then kicks in with MASTERS OF FATE, a Rhapsodyish song, with a catchy riff, nice instrumentation between guitars and keyboards. The chorus sounds interesting and the guitar duel solos sounds typical Helloween/Gamma Ray very well done nonetheless, as well as the keyboard solo. FAR AWAY has more of a progressive feel, and lees epic powermetal, sounding more like Angra and Dream Theater from time to time, specially with the keyboard parts. The song is not as catchy as the previous one, but is fine. The instrumental section is long and bautiful, including an excellent classical guitar solo.
Next comes the ballad SOMEWHERE IN MY DREAMS, pretty cheesy stuff, the lyrics are not so good, but the melody shows something better can be done. It features a calm solo with piano and guitar, and the slow guitar solo over a power chord background, which is fine. After this ELVES VOICES is a short almost instrumental track with a folky feel, accoustic guitars and keyboards, which serves as introduction to DAKSHA, a full power metal song, with beautiful riffage and instrumentation in general. This one sounds more epic with longer and different choruses, and melodies. Lyrically tells more of the story behind de EP, and future Daksha releases I guess.

The main problem of the band is, as many bands in similiar situations, the singer. He sounds, or tries to sound like Andre Matos, which has a particular voice, although hearing this vocalist may easily bring Andre Matos into mind, he is lightyears behind him. The pronunciation is average, not excellent, but not so bad as other argentine singers, but Im sorry to say, he is pretty bad.

The EP shows enourmous potential, as all the arrangement and instrumentation in general has nothing to envy the professional bands. With better production and another vocalist, as well as rearranging some parts of songs, a very good full lenght album could be expected. This type of releases usually features songs that much later can evolve into great songs of excellent albums, which this band can achieve easily.