Seraphim - Ai

*=Staff's pick	Intro Tears Resurrect Implementation* Desperate Can't Take My In The Air* None* Before Is That? Instantaneous The End My (Chinese Version)

Genre	Operatic Power Metal	Pay Lee, Jax Yeh	Vocals
Tracks	14	Kessier Hsu	Guitar
Runningtime	77 Min.	Lucas Huang	Guitar
Label	Arise Records	Jax Yeh	Bass
Release	25 June 2004	Simon Lin	Drums
Country	Taiwan	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Nightwish, Edenbridge, Angra, Labÿrinth

A mix of early Nightwish and Angra with a strong Edenbridge ambience that is embracing it all. It feels a bit naive and is really not that good. Imagine the voice of Sabine from Edenbridge but with a much weaker and lighter sound and songs that many times sound like leftovers from Angra.

The members of the Taiwanese band are capable of handling their instruments providing power metal of the decent kind. But the songs are bleak and powerless and it never really takes off and I never get by the feeling that they are trying to hard to copy both Nightwish and Angra. But there are some really good harmonies and solo parts here and there but not nearly enough to make the music stand out and saving the album from failure.

The voice of Pay Lee is of the operatic kind but not nearly as skilled as Tarja from Nightwish and she sings in such high pitch with a strained voice that it becomes unbearable to listen to her after a while. Then add the male vocals from Jax that has similarities with Andre Matos (ex-Angra, Shaman) but with a lack of power in his voice that sometimes cracks. And on top on this throw in a Chinese accent and in many times really bad pronunciations from both of the vocalists.

But when they mix up the vocals from Pay Lee with growls as the music tends to be heavier it actually gets better even though the growls are of the croaking kind. And you also has to suffer the terrible semi-ballad My, not once but twice, the second time with vocals in Chinese. And when in this song the male vocals are at their worst, it is as torture to my ears. The instrumental track None is without a doubt the best of the album, slightly progressive power metal with a touch of Labÿrinth that has really great harmonies and leads, and what's best is that there are no vocals.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	3	4

Summary
3 chalices of 10 - Thomas