Irremediable

I'm not sure epic is the word I'd use to describe Kayzen. They're said to play epic gothic metal, which I thought was worth a listen, but in truth their stuff is more reminiscent of black metal (with a bit of thrash, seemingly, but not enough to change my mind about it). I'm not exactly a black metal fan, so naturally I was disappointed. Anyway, there are two tracks on this single, both of them in a fairly similar style but each with their differences.

On both tracks the vocals are deeply growled by the same woman from Enter Chaos. Basically, you'll have trouble figuring out that you're hearing a woman. What's odd about the growls though is that they don't really fit in too well, they just seem too thick for the rest of the music. For whatever reason, the guitars just don't make the right sound to support them. Maybe if the band chose to play a style more like death than black metal her vocals would work, but they just don't sound right to me when I hear this stuff. I'm kind of annoyed that the two things don't fit together very well, because the riffs coming from the guitars are actually quite appealing and I have heard growls done far worse than they are across this release.

The bit that really kills any chance the band had though is the keyboard, especially on The Seducer. It's just so damn out of place and not appealing in the slightest, and the worst part is that Kayzen don't even need a keyboard to make their music work. The riffs are good, as are the drumming and the vocals. So what the fuck is the keyboard trying to do and why did the band think that it needed to be done? All I hear is a weird noise that semi-resembles ancient Egyptian music. Who honestly thought that was a good idea?

Yeah, nothing's going to save this band's works from the awful accompanying keyboards. That's a shame, because both songs (particularly The Seducer, which is s shame since it was ruined by the keyboards more than Irremediable) had some potential to work very well. Sadly the keyboards do kill it, although something about the different parts just didn't fit together for me. Whatever, it's definitely more black metal than gothic, and I'd advise you only to listen to it if you like black metal with weird keyboards.