Label: Montany 2013
Review by Kimmo Toivonen
This Dutch band approached us in the old-fashioned way - by sending a CD for us to review. In this age of digital promos, I'll have to give them an extra mention for that... call me old-fashioned but I like tangible things more than files. Now onto the music.
The first few moments of the opening track "Of Fire And Ice" are enough to make a hardened metal head to run for the hills - 14 seconds of techno sounding synth parp! Then the band leads us into more familiar waters with modern metal riffs. Vocalist Patrick van Maurik manages to sound like James LaBrie, Mike Vescara and Lizzy Borden during the first song, and later on he'll add both Geoff Tate and Vince Neil to the list. I guess I don't have to tell you that he has a rather high-pitched voice? Strangely enough, throughout the album he sounds kind of angry, even during the melodic love songs! His slightly over-the-top performance tends to irritate me a bit...
"Biogenetic" is definitely an interesting album with varied songwriting and clever arrangements. The band combines progressive elements and power metal to lush melodies and keyboard textures quite nicely, even within one song! Their finest moments for me are "hidden" in the middle of the album, "Without You" and "Miles Away" represent the band's melodic side. Elsewhere you'll hear that the band is influenced by Dream Theater and eighties' Queensryche, but that isn't a bad thing, is it?
Website
No comments:
Post a Comment