The debut album ‘The Forgotten Goddess,’ by this LA based band at the beginning of 2007 was promising enough although reading back the review I described it as one with a spark missing. Listening to this new one I have to admit not a huge amount has really changed despite the fact that there is now a different guitarist in the group and they have some guy called Logan Madder doing the production duties. First album was on Nuclear Blast who obviously thought the group were going to be their next big female fronted hitter, this one only sees them on the label for USA territories and Massacre for Europe for some reason but it’s not like they have been entirely dropped by their former label.
This is not what I would describe as FFGM in the slightest as it has a thoroughly modern sheen about it as opener ‘Ten Of Swords’ admirably proves with a fast and furious guitar strum about it and room for some scything soloing. It’s singer Francine Boucher’s vocals that really wrings any worth out of this though as her angelic tones which are unsurprisingly upfront in the mix have a real spark about them. After the first upbeat number they go for more a ballad on ‘A Veiled Horizon’ before crunching away into mid-paced territories.
I’m not really into the music itself here I have to admit, it just sounds too produced with drums annoyingly clicking their way through the songs and the cutting chug of the guitars also quickly getting boring and one-dimensional. I find myself concentrating on the vocals here and doing my best to leave them in the background but the incessant wasp like guitar buzz and ratatatat of the drums is pretty impossible to ignore.
‘Twilight Fires’ is one of the more incendiary numbers but it is really one that is cast down in flames as the previously mentioned drum sound is even more annoying with the pace picked up and completely ruins any enjoyment I may have got from the song. To add insult to injury when we get to final track ‘Funeral In The Sky’ it’s a seven minute instrumental and one that proves that without the vocals this is a band who are at best average and at worst pretty damn annoying.
http://www.myspace.com/echoesofeternity
