Title: As Shadows Burn
Artist: Echoes of Eternity
Genre: Progressive Metal, Thrash Metal, Gothic Metal
Release Date: 25th September 2009
Label: Massacre Records
Album Review
ECHOES OF ETERNITY is a quintet from the USA attracting one’s attention with the attempts to combine the power and harshness of extreme music with the tunefulness of progressive metal diluted this mixture with the beautiful clean female vocals. The first album ‘The Forgotten Goddess’ was released in 2007 and it actually presented an unsteady balance on the verge of Gothic and Thrash metal with a raw sound and full of clichés. But it was only a starting point and the band had almost two years for further development and more concrete formation of the style. The musicians’ new work ‘As Shadows Burn’ reflects their intentions to find a niche in the sphere of extreme music without adding anything new to the genre but simply improving that specific formula they have once chosen: the sonic mixture, rather fuzzy on the previous CD, takes more accurate shape.
The first track still produces an ambiguous impression and it feels like the vocals and the melody exist separately and don’t combine at all. But on the other tracks all the parts are on their right places and a listener has an opportunity to enjoy the music of high quality to the full. Well, to enjoy it or not is another question because for me all the songs sound too monotonous and flat and it’s really impossible to notice when a composition ends and another one starts. But maybe I’m just not used to listening to such style. However the music itself is really well-done and rough guitar riffs, energetic bass lines and dominating drums immediately attack you with full force softening this assault with the beauty of the smooth melodic vocals. But on the other hand the melody is unvaried and it’s getting harder and harder to listen to the album.
Nevertheless the best compositions are the last three ones, namely ‘Buried beneath a Thousand Dreams’, ‘Letalis Deus’ and ‘Funeral in the Sky’. The latter is a powerful instrumental track which almost compensates all the shortcomings of the CD. Anyway, ‘As Shadows Burn’ may interest the fans of the genre yet ECHOES OF ETERNITY has a potential to make something more complicated and original than this album.
Tracklist
01. Ten of Swords - 3:55
02. Veiled Horizon - 3:34
03. Memories of Blood and Gold - 3:46
04. The Scarlet Embrace - 4:10
05. Descent of a Blackened Soul - 5:18
06. Twilight Fires - 4:08
07. Buried beneath a Thousand Dreams - 4:19
08. Letalis Deus - 3:33
09. Funeral in the Sky - 7:12
Line-up
Francine Boucher - Vocals
Brandon Patton - Guitars
Kirk Carrison - Drums
Duane Cowan - Bass
Bryan Eagle - Guitars
Website
http://www.myspace.com/echoesofeternity
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 7
Extras: -
Total: 7.5 / 10
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