Arachnes
A New Day
2011
-
I doubt I’ve ever heard an Italian power metal band that sounds so un-Italian. No lush orchestration or fantastic pomp in sight, instead this is progressive metal in the vein of Dream Theater and Anubis Gate. Only not quite as good. Having no previous experience with Arachnes’ music, I can’t say how “A New Day” compares to their earlier work, but I have a vague recollection they used to be more straightforward power metal. In any case, this isn’t.
Now, I’m having trouble deciding if this band is just being too ambitious or not ambitious enough. They seem to know how to write a basic song structure and prog it up a notch, with often very classy guitar and keyboard work, but the vocal melodies fail to impress, safe for a few songs. So, while the instrumentation has a certain boldness to it, the hooks are largely absent. Whether they are not pushing themselves enough or too much, I cannot say, but this feels like a half-finished job. Some songs have decent choruses like “I Know The Darkness” and “Magic World”, but they’re forgotten as soon as they’re over. Singer Franco Caruso sounds like a whinier version of James LaBrie or Jacob Hansen, and I find his voice to be generally emotionless.
Arachnes do have one typically Italian trait: incomprehensible lyrics. Perhaps there’s an intelligent concept behind the songs here, but I can’t decipher it through all the mumbling. With highly philosophical titles like “My Face is Hard” and “The Reason of the Thing” I expect it’s dynamite, though. I’m not taking the piss, but it’s hard enough to remember any of this, let alone that you can barely understand what’s being sung. In the end all we’re left with is a lot of promise and the hope that one day Arachnes may amaze us. Perhaps on another new day.
---
Arno Callens' rating: 3.0 out of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment