Band Name: Cantara
Album: A Moment to Reconsider
Genre: Thrash/progressive/death metalRelease date: October 6th 2006
Label: The Electric Company
Cantara was founded in 1992 in the northern regions of the Netherlands. In 14 years the band has grown to a musical level that not very many will overcome. All of the band members have established a network of their own and are known in Holland for their other (former) bands. God Dethroned, Seizure, Sinister and Autumn to name a few.
Mats van der Valk - bass & lead vocals
Pascal Grevinga - guitars
Jens van der Valk - guitars & vocals
Chris Oldenburger - drums
Website
http://www.cantaraband.com/
www.myspace.com/cantaraband
Review per song
01. Shattered Glass -6.37
Starts out with a classical heavy metal tune, you could’ve expected on something like a Megadeth album. Its intro I can’t describe a being something original. Thankfully, as this song progressed the feeling of the album is getting more and more clear. The lyrics are pretty good. This continues during the song. Mats his vocals are very strong, they have their own special noise that suits the music quite well. The grunts are switched with clean vocals featuring Jens as well. The music varies between slow almost ballad like moments and strong guitar riffs.
02. Algebra and Alchemy- 6.01
This one starts out like a ballad with one of the members telling a little tale. The song has a very strong epic element weaving trough their death metal base. Especially its choruses make this step out very well. The rest of the song is quite easy listening
03. Stars for Guidance- 3.56
Also quite easy listening, and quite like the second song as well. The chorus seems to be a more important of the song then on the rest of the album. The ones who know Autumn quite well will recognize Nienke’s voice in this song. Besides this, this song gives me a feeling the others didn’t yet. More emotion in the song.
04. Hunter #4 – 7.38
The intro is faster, shows us the seizure roots! This slips quite fast and the music seems to linger between a ballad and wanting to be a melodic metal track. Keeps swaying both ways but none of the above seems to able to satisfy. After a while this does get boring, and the continues tingling of the drums starts to get on my nerves.
05. A tenfold Loss to Triple Powers – 5.34
Starts out soon and sudden. Sound good though, shows ones again this band has a lot of talent gathered with its existing members. Varies a lot, between thrash almost all the way to doom.
06. Molten Minds - 4.42
This song is more progressive and Rock ‘n Roll, its more compact, its time it not filled by a huge amount of varies and experimental pieces of music. Sometimes this can actually be nice. Just listening and no thinking.
07. The Silent Clouds – 6.10
The intro reminds me of gothic metal bands, even though the reast of the song is quite fast, it lingers in the corner of melodic metal and with its epic atmosphere its one of the nicest songs on the album.
08. The 500, the Remembered - 5.36
Starts faster but soon start to sound like a few of the other songs on this album. The flat recording is starting to annoy me now. I miss the depth in the songs that would have given me Goosebumps otherwise.
Technical
Total playing time: 44.54 mins
Songs: 8
Extra’s: -
Cover picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 6
Extra: -
Total: 7
Conclusion
With the two Van der Valk brothers playing in one band you might expect something. Well I did, and they didn’t let me down. The bands delivered some nice pieces of music that will be known as a very succesfull project. The only problem with this cd is the recording. I miss the extra body and feeling that can make these songs just a bit better then they are now. Big plus: they rememberd to print the lyrics in the booklet. Even if you cannot understand Mats, you can find out what the CD is all about!
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