The Fishers for Souls

Ehh...I guess this album isn't bad at all, but it's nothing really special. The songs that are really good here are really really good, but the rest is just a big sea of "meh". None of the songs here are bad, but a lot of them are just really boring. For example, "A Dry White Season" and "Man in the Moon" are both really slow and soft piano ballads that really go nowhere in a runtime of 6 minutes, which isn't even that long but with such little variation they drag. "Man in the Moon" picks up a bit towards the end, but the climax is just really cheesy and nothing special at all. Aside from these two slow drags, we get "Faith" and "Whirring Jar" which are really fillery, "Whirring Jar" especially. "Whirring Jar" is just a minute of random folk instrumentation with what sounds like bagpipes, waste of space. "Faith" is some acoustic ballad which goes on for too long, is way too cheesy, and has little to no redeeming factors. None of these 4 songs are atrocious or anything like that, but I really don't care for them and don't recommend them at all.

With that said, let's talk about the other side of the album: the good stuff. "Death to the Clown" and "Man on Fire" are the best tracks, which are both outstanding crushers and excellent tracks. "Death to the Clown" has a slow, eerie sounding verse riff which helps build tension before the EXPLODING chorus comes in. When this chorus comes in, it just gets you pumped up. It's a crossroads of mayhem, badass riffs taking away your entire soul while Gerry screams his heart out. Fantastic track. "Man on Fire" is a lot different, but a lot more manic. This song had a frenetic stop-start feel to it, randomly getting really slow and mellow before launching into complete fast mayhem when you least expect it. It goes on like this for almost 5 minutes of complete coming and going insanity, making for an extremely wild ride. Besides these two songs, the rest of the album is solid, definitely a step above the four songs I mentioned earlier in the review, but still nothing that amazing. "Days of Rain" and "Dreams Die Fast" contain some excellent riffage but the great riffs in each song aren't used enough, and the songs rely too heavily on slower, less interesting parts.

Overall, this album is just kind of mediocre. I mean, it's not bad, it's just really weak. There are only a few songs that really stick out from the blob of whatever this album is. And that's all it really is. Just 40 minutes of mediocre progressive metal from a band who hasn't nearly discovered what they're capable of yet. Which they would on their next release, "Circus of Fear". Sadly, that would be their last, which is really a shame. That album was really good and it showed signs of an excellent career coming - if it only actually happened. Anyway, this album isn't bad, it isn't good, it's just a middle of the road affair that wasn't nearly refined enough for a band that had lots of stored potential. That said, Death to the Clown is pretty fucking awesome.

Recommended tracks: "Death to the Clown", "Man on Fire"