| CD REVIEW Crystal Eyes |
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Band : Crystal Eyes Wow man, ya know, it’s been since 2005’s Confessions Of The Maker (a review for which was posted in May of that year)that I’d been in contact with this Swedish Heavy Metal band, as for some dark reason their Benelux distributor suddenly scrapped us from their correspondence list! A lot has happened with the band since! For starters, the album’s singer Daniel Heiman (ex-Lost Horizon) was only hired for those recordings, so the band still had to go in search for a frontman to replace founding member Mikael Dahl (whom had decided to step back to concentrate on his guitar play) as singer. The band found their new singer...through an Internet audition call...in Dane Sören Nico Adamsen (prefers to be called by his middle name) of the band Starrats (with whom he had already released an album), who won said the competition with his “cool mix of Rob Halford and Dio” singing style. Then, at the start of the recording process of the band’s 2006 (released Nov. 3) album Dead City Dreaming (the mixing of which would be done by an outsider for the first time in the band’s history...but by none less than the revered Fedrik Nordström), guitarist Jonathan Nyberg decided to quit with the band, as he felt that combining it with a full-time job and a growing family, his engagement in Crystal Eyes had only suffered. As a farewell gesture, he still did one solo on the album, but otherwize all guitar play on that album was done by Mikael alone! A replacement on the second guitar was swiftly found in Niclas Karlsson, whom had been a co-founder of the band back in 1992! Following a short break in 1995, Niclas had quit the band to form Fierce Conviction (soon renamed to just Conviction) and release two albums. He then appeared on one Zonata album, and continued to play short stints with Fraternia and Rising Faith. For some time before re-joining his old band, he and Mikael had been playing together in the Judas Priest tribute band Defenders Of The Faith...so he was close at hand when Mikael needed him to fill the shoes of Nyberg! May 2007 brought two very different announcements. Mikael first let it be known that he had already finished 7 new songs for an upcoming album, and had 8 more in progress...and then a couple of days later Niclas had asked to be releaved from his duties to the band. He’d lost his inspiration to play guitar and rehearse, and felt it wasn’t fair for him to stay on. So, the message announcing his departure at the same time became a call out for a new axeman, preferably one who’d be able to come to rehearsals frequently enough, ànd one who’d respect the twin guitar tradition of the band. On September 1 the band let it be known that their search for a new guitarist was over when they’d found one Paul Pettersson, who lives within walking distance from the band’s studio. As a matter of fact they’d known him for a long time already, as he’d played with friends of the band, even ex-Crystal Eyes members! Time to work in the new man in some of the old material, and of course also the new stuff...get his imput, so to say! Then, on a mutual agreement, the band and their former label decided to part ways! Which meant Crystal Eyes had to go through the process of recording a demo and send it around to appropriate labels. After all offers came in, the band decided to siign onto the Metal Heaven roster, because they gave the band an overall positive feeling during negociations...could apparently also convince the band of interesting times ahead! Well, when listening to the 9 tracks (which nevertheless last a good 42 ½ minutes) on the new album, I have to say everything comes over quite convincing. Adamsen (whom I’m personally hearing for the first time) is a true vocal wizard, and the above description of his voice is really spot-on...with the difference that he excells the sum of the two references gloriously! The new axeman is definitely an asset as well, and he and Dahl almost seem like an extention of each other. Overall, the pace of the songs is quite speedy, but there’s a couple of exceptions when the boys (oh, time to mention that the line-up is rounded with bassist Claus Wikander and drummer Stefan Svantesson) take back on the speed somewhat. “The Fire Of Hades” has a calmer pace overall, and a keyboard-driven passage towards the end; while “Dying In The Rain” has calmer vocal work, it is still a Heavy song, and acoustic ballad “Guardian” – also the album closer – is calmer by definition (also contains some truely passionate singing by Mikael Dahl as lead singer)! The sound is great, as always when Fredrik Nordström does your mixing! For your listening pleasures, the band has posted no less than 4 songs off the album at myspace.com/crystaleyesfromsweden, so check ‘em out! Darn, this album really comes out in the wrong season, because this is just the kind of thing I would give listening sessions while sitting on the porch on a hot Summer’s evening with a nice cold longdrink close at hand! 87/100 Tony. |