A Tale Never Told

This talented outfit remained buried deep under the pile of grooves and grunges in the early-90’s, and few were the lucky ones to ever get a hold of their early demos which revealed an act fully accomplished to do a major damage even during the amorphous 90’s with a progressive/technical blend of power/thrash, strictly on the classic side, looking at the US heritage of bands like Helstar, Fates Warning, Liege Lord, etc. A big pothole were the weak unrehearsed vocals which were coming with a hoarse deathy baritone, and were the furthest possible fit to the much superior music.

We jump the next two demos and the promo, and we reach the album reviewed here, the guys having finally made it to the official release stage. With much better production and a much more convincing performer behind the mike (could have been the same guy) this opus would be a no-brainer for all progressive metal lovers which starts twisting and turning into quite a few directions with “Eternal Land”, a labyrinthine proposition with echoes of Andromeda and Zero Hour. “The Fifth Season” is a more linear pounding shredder with quiet balladic overtones, but the title-track is a 15-min behemoth, an ambitious mazey progressive composition with a wide range of influences, form both the old and the modern school, the band providing several impetuous gallops to alleviate the over-the-top at times complexity.

“The Last Ceremony” winks at the doom metal fraternity with stomping ship-sinking riffs, a tendency somewhat continued on the excellent ballad “The Voice of a Siren”. Prepare for a big surprise after that, Stevie Wonder’s hit “I Just Called to Say I Love You” turned into a frolic thrash/crossover anthem, made much faster and barely recognizable in the process, the vocalist not helping much although he has improved enormously since the demo stage, singing in a more acceptable cleaner mid-ranged fashion. More brooding balladisms on the sombre steam-roller “The Opening on the Boundary” which will delight with a brisk thrashy finale, before “Alien” wraps it on with brilliant schizoid vortex-like rhythms and intriguing surreal passages, a masterpiece of thought-out amorphous thrash with a great psychedelic twist as well, the highlight on this diverse enjoyable saga.

Regardless of the multiple influences roaming around there’s never an awkward moment to be encountered; even the Stevie Wonder cover works very well, perfectly embedded into the mouldable structure of the album the latter tolerating a wide gamut of nuances, stretching into several trajectories, but retaining its progressive metal integrity all over, also giving the band plenty of opportunities to exhibit their skills in various, plain contrasting at times, departments. A few touches here and there were suggesting at a possible fuller addressing of the modern trends, to a marginally bigger extent, the way some Swedish acts (Pathos, Memento Mori, Memory Garden, Fifth Reason, etc.) did without drastically altering their outlook, provided that the Italians’ delivery wasn’t too far from the one of these outfits... nah, innocence could only get lost once, and by no means under less pleasant groovy, angry, industrial circumstances.