Soul Stealer

Soul Stealer are new yet old band from Lithuania. Formerly known as Soul Brothers since the inception back in 2003, they changes their name before releasing this, their self-titled debut album. The band got massive media interest this year, as the vocalist Jeronimas Milius won the country's Eurovision song contest.

Soul Stealer perform heavy metal mixed with power metal. Heavy guitar riffage, Steve Harris-esque bass, a lot of double kick drumming, tinkling synths and the vocals that vary from good, powerful and individual singing to falsetto screams. 70 percent of the songs are sung in Lithuanian, and this is the only real thing, that distinguish the band from others. Basically, the songs are a bit too long, because there's quite a lot of forgettable material in them. This happens too often. Even though 'The Reaper' is the longest song, it happens to contain a lot of good things and in its volatility, it is nicely put together. It has anything from heavy metal to acoustic part and prog rock bits. Some songs, such as 'Brolis už brolį', have pretty unstoppable drive to them, but this is a rare treat.

I find the synths very, very unoriginal and kind of mood-lowering element, sounding too basic and cheapo. The falsetto screams are usually total bollocks in my ears, and so this time around, too. I just can't stand 'em, despite a few expections. I think it is these things together with the unripe song writing skills, that are the big stumbling stones for the band at this point of their career. The performance from the band is okay, but no ear-melting in any case. Soundwise this serves and is organic, but is blunt in places, especially the drums and the synths.

In all, Soul Stealer are good at best, but still there's a lot to improve. The song writing is uncertain and this is the biggest weak spot for the band. The production and such things come next, and aren't that important. Let's see if they can do better next time. In first place, this one is for Lithuanian metallers.

(originally written for ArchaicMetallurgy.com in 2008)

From Vilnius with furor, the young Lithuanian band debuts with this homonymous rich album of symphonic melodic heavy metal. Scrolling these tracks far and wide, it seems to jump back to ten years ago, when Helloween and the two "Keeper..." where the monuments in front of which a crowd of new bands bowed down and Stratovarius imposed their neo-classical Finnish power metal to the whole Europe.

We can say that Soul Stealer are not too impressive, since they don't show a huge technique or prove to have a high quality writing skill. Also the production, faraway and a bit dull, does not make justice to a work that may be appreciated by the most diehard and homesick fans of the genre.

In particular there are some catchy melodies and hooklines that, sung with great conviction, in the most intense moments reveal quite resounding. The Maiden rides in the fastest moments have been heard a thousand times but are always quite effective though, apart from the singing, the most characteristic element of the band seems being the keys, given with a rather retro effect but always there to cover the cracks with some quite enjoyable phrases.

The prevailing use of the mother tongue adds a folk touch to a work that, all in all, succeeds in being over a mere sufficiency.

Originally written for Silent Scream http://www.silentscreamzine.com/Home.asp?Lang=ENG