Band : NeverNight
Album title : NeverNight
Label : Own release
Distributor : Own release
Release date : Late Summer 2008
Release : Demo-CD

Formed in 2001 following an idea of Dimitri Salamon (bass) and Eric Panazzolo (guitarist until 2003), and after the addition of guitarist Andrea Colusso and drummer Denis Novello, Montebelluna (TV) based Italian Heavy Metal act (influenced by the likes of Rage, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Impelliteri, Morse, Vai, but also Pink  Floyd, Muddy Waters and The Doors) was fortunate enough to have members with a sufficient technical  background. So the band was soon writing its own songs, and going out on the local club circuit where the audience gave ‘em a warm response.

In 2003 Panazzolo was replaced by Paolo Zamprogno at the guitar, and lead singer Stefano Bellon also entered the fold...and in this line-up the band records its first self-produced 9-track demo Voices From Hell in 2006. That same year Novello is replaced by current drummer Andrea Cini, and when Zamprogno leaves the band decides to continue as a quartet. This not only leads to a more stable line-up, but also to the new members bringing in influences from Speed and Thrash Metal (maiinly bands like Nevermore, Slayer, Metallica, Testament, and Megadeth), without touching to the melodic aspects which had typified the band’s sound before. The band took at writing new material, and with some 12 new songs written, they entered the Majestic Studios in Scorzè during Summer 2008.

The end result is an 11-track album lasting a good 52 minutes...one of which the short (1 ½ minute) calmer (just simply acoustic guitars after a piano intro) instrumental intro (titled “Fly 1° Part” which has some melodic remeniscences to The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”) to one of the album’s ballads (“Fly, 2° Part”). And it’s in the ballads (the other being the album closing “bonus” track “Prayer”) that this band’s deficiency...say failing (at least in my eyes)...comes, because all of the sudden Bellon’s vocals, now much calmer, are awefully drenched in an accent that belies his South European origins! A pity, because as you will be able to witness from listening to a foursome of songs  posted at myspace.com/metalnevernight, the band has what it needs as far as the music goes! Of course, what with Colusso also being responsable for some sparce keyboard additions (more accentuated in the ballads), the band could never play things on stage the way they can be fixed in a studio, without the use of some foot pedal keyboards...and an occasional extra guitarist...because certain passages simply cannot do without a second axeman!

Nevertheless, if the band would be willing to drop their ballads, or allow the singer to take lessons in order to improve his performance in this area, the band might well make it to a decent record deal (in fact, I happen to be the owner of inside info indicating that there’s at least sóme interest from A&R people of a reasonably big record label – I’m not sure whether I wouldn’t have done better not to mention that here, though!).

85/100

Tony.