Virgin Steele - Visions Of Eden

Published Oct. 17 2006

*=Staff's pick	Immortal I Stand (The Birth Of Adam)* Adorned With The Rising Cobra The Ineffable Name* Black Light On Black* Bonedust Angel Of Death God Above God The Hidden God Childslayer* When Dusk Fell Visions Of Eden*

Genre	Epic Power Metal	David DeFeis	Vocals
Tracks	11	Edward Pursino	Guitar
Runningtime	79 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Sanctuary Records	Josh Block	Bass
Release	08 Sept. 2006	Frank Gilchrist	Drums
Country	USA	David DeFeis	Keyboards
Similar artists	---

Shit, I thought it was hard being a Blind Guardian fan. In such environments a four year period seems to be the average amount of time that passes between new studio releases. Virgin Steele though have now kept us on hold for almost six (Hymns Of Victory and Book Of Burning from 2002 not accounted for)! But at long last, and to celebrate the 25-year anniversary of the band, the eagerly awaited Visions of Eden has been set on the loose as David "Dionysus" DeFeis and his associates present new material to the metal world.

Again returning to his favourite and everlasting Sumerian mythical theme based around the woman Lilith and her relationship to God, Adam and Eve, Visions Of Eden is by David DeFeis described as "A Romantic and Barbaric movie of the mind. The Destruction of Paganism, Gnosticism and the desecration and eradication of the Goddess Principle that once dwelled so freely within Divinity".

Sounds familiar so long? By all means it should. The lyrics and music continue to be as poetic, sophisticated, elegant and intelligent as always and Visions of Eden categorically continues where The House Of Atreus Act II left us back in 2000 in regards of sound and song layout. But this time the whole deal is even more complex and also more epic in many aspects. No two parted saga to further manifest this but the album is still packed to the limit: 11 songs - 79 minutes of play time! The piano/keyboard has also been used in a more widespread way this time and the symphonic elements stand out more extensively.

A slightly darker edge also hovers beneath the surface of this album and the mysticism resting over the whole thing plays a bigger part. And not a single song on the album satisfies with just following the intro/verse/chorus/solo/chorus pattern but of course contain much extended middle sections where many tempo changes and sticks are located among the great guitar passages and solos from the Pursino finger fretting. Of course we're very accustomed to this by now when dealing with this band but this time these passageways are even more stretched out and complex than before. A song can start out being fast and fierce to slow down to ballad fashion and remain there many minutes before the pace is once more escalated.

The melody lines also change so many times during the tracks it feels that at least two or maybe even three songs could be carved out of a single one. However ambitious this might seem, on many occasions it's almost crossing the boundaries of being a bit overworked and overdosed with different inputs. And of course since this is Virgin Steele some recycling occurs as usual. Not so much in the guitar work but there's no mistaking that some choruses have melody lines already used on previous albums, Invictus and House Of Atreus Act II especially, but luckily not to an extent it becomes a disturbing matter. There's always a thought behind this from David DeFeis and since his compositions as good as always are connected to previous material I would have been more surprised if it this concept wasn't used at all.

The song material itself presents quite an array of different compositional twists, basically covering all areas from slow beautiful ballad-esque numbers to faster and fiercer up tempo power metal numbers, to dramatic epic outings and mostly spanning over six minutes per piece. The first five songs, from Immortal I Stand to Bonedust really show Virgin Steele on a true winning streak- fast and fierce, beautiful choruses, epic and dramatic as ever. But then we have two ballads in a row in Angel Of Death and God Above God and When Dusk Fell and the title number move along in semi-ballad/mid tempo fashion and therefore the album really looses much of its outstanding beginning. These mentioned songs are by no means appalling ones at all though, certainly not, but in terms of pace and good flow the album really takes a little dip in performance.

Regardless of this Visions of Eden is indeed not lacking any high quality or creativity whatsoever but a slightly more straight forward album might have been to wish for and the slower sections especially towards the end of the opus could have been fewer, however beautiful and fitting to the story they are. I really also feel that the band has to be a bit more careful in the future not to fall in to the Blind Guardian trap of making things a bit too complex, multi layered and overworked. All the same though, when the album really fires on all cylinders it becomes a truly rollicking ride of elegant flow and lives up to my highly set expectations.

Virgin Steele are truly back and have returned in good form too despite the album not being the definite killer I had wished it would be. Visions Of Eden still marks another fine output that manifest their already legendary prominence in the dramatic epic power metal genre and shouldn't dishearten the fans. It requires many rotations before the songs are properly rooted but it should really take less than six years before it totally sinks in. So now let's just hope that we see another Virgin Steele album before 2012…

See also review of: Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation , Book Of Burning
See also: Song By Song Commentary

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8,5	8,5	8,5

Summary
8,5 chalices of 10 - Mat

This album consists of two real killer songs (Immortal I Stand (The Birth Of Adam) and Childslayer) and a handful other ones that are partially enjoyable. It is very similar to the House Of Atreus albums but a weaker version of them both. Some vocal lines and riffs seem to have been ripped straight off older songs and been re-used which gives a bit of a bitter taste to it, especially since they are not better than the originals which would be the whole point in doing something like that, I would think. But what really kills this album is the production, which is horrendous and makes it impossible to enjoy the music. The guitar is practically non-audible and sounds as best like a bumblebee buzzing in a far distance. The drums are as usual thin and it sounds like someone is banging on pots and pans with a cotton ear bud. Everything is drenched in very distinct keyboards and vocals and those are almost all you hear, or at least what you unvoluntarily draw your full attention to. Too bad, since the music definitely has qualities. //Tommy (3,5 of 10)