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Evenfall - Cumbersome


*
=Staff's pick

Rawish
Frontloader
Dogma
Entre Dos Tierras*
In Absentia Christi*
Overcast Sky*
Cumbersome
Vangelis Mundi
Unworshipped*
Conspectu Mortis II


Genre Gothic/Heavy Metal
Roberta/Ansgar
Vocals
Tracks 10
Ivan D' Alia
Guitar
Runningtime 46 Min.
Boban Milunovic
Guitar
Label Century Media
Melis Cakic
Bass
Release 22 April 2002
Viktor Ivanovic
Drums
Country Italy
Max Boi
Keyboards
Similar artists Theatre of Tragedy, Nightwish, Lacuna Coil

Evenfall is an Italian quintet that originally got together out of the ashes of the Doom and Death Metal act Resurrecturis and has been in a constant state of change ever since, and they are here releasing their 3rd album with a new female singer and a new guitarist since last time, and they describe themselves like this on their website:
"The Italian band Evenfall defines themselves as a couple of musicians that simply play the music they like best - we are tired of being marked as this or that kind of style, so…
Rock & Roll rules… and kiss our ass!!!!!!!"

What Evenfall is playing is atmospheric metal in the veins of Sins Of Thy Beloved and early the Gathering, as well as the bands mentioned as similar artists, and contains female, light and crisp vocals - which itself isn't especially unusual these days - but what makes it a bit more special than other bands is the parallell male growling vocals, but not even that is especially innovative these days.

The album starts off with a few plain good songs, but somehow they feel a bit anomymous to me, and are quickly forgotten after they have faded out, as they doesn't manage to get you in that grip you find yourself hooked in when listening to a very good album.

But with the 4th as well as the following track Entre Dos Tierras and In Absentia Christi this album takes off a little, since they show themselves to be good examples of energy, melodies and harmonies at it's best, even though it has to be said that E.Dos Tierras is a cover, and features Devon Graves as guestvocalist.

Vocalwise it's overall good - nothing more, nothing less, and I like the Italian touch over a few songs when they sing in their native language.
The very lovely Robi on female vocals performs her job well, but she never reach the heigths of Nightwish's Tarja or Liv Kristine from Norway's T.o.Tragedy.
The male vocals that are split almost equally here are also good -sometimes more yelling, high-pitched growling, and sometimes more guttural, straight from the stomach, and it's really good and brings a big part to the whole picture here.

They are mixing pure metal with a bit of elechtronical tunes here, and therefor my comparision to Theatre of Tragedy's latest releases, even though the norwegians are located a bit up on the ladder compared to Evenfall.

What I perhaps would like to hear on their next release is some more songs that really stand out, and bring out some of their apperant underlying musical skills a bit more.
I have read in places that this band is described as "an unforgettable whirlwind of feelings and energy!"
I say that they aren't really, but if they should bring in more energy into this - then it would be hit!

The titletrack, for example, has strong similarities to how Nightwish would compose a song, but it doesn't really hold to the end.
Perhaps we are too spoiled nowadays with superb releases from the major bands in this genre to fully appreciate this, but this is not bad at all, so I after all urge you to go check this album out if you are a fan of this genre.

Production
Vocals
Compositions

7

9

6

 
Summary



6,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy

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