This week I review the first album of a French-speaking Belgian progressive/power metal group Ethernity, lead by Julie Colin. This is the first album of the band and they have been fairly aggressive in terms of social media communication. After a couple of months in waiting, the album is finally on iTunes (even on iTunes US, as early as today) and of course I decided to give a try to the album (that means spend $10 for a digital copy) after previewing it. What can I say? It is a pretty nice first release.
I just wanted to warn you, this is not a symphonic metal or a female-fronted death melodic metal band, so you will not have a diva voice or female growls. just to warn you.
The sound is typically what I would expect from a progressive metal album, nice guitar bass, it is loud, it is heavy and sound nice. I very enjoyable to listen compared to what I have to listen here in US rock radio. It changes from either listening to melodic death or symphonic metal and thats not bad.
Julie is so far doing a pretty good job but yet I have to find something extraordinary on her voice, maybe because I am naturally biased on symphonic metal singers (that have some music training and sing at opera-level) or melodic death metal singers (that basically growls at high frequency). But I will honestly tell you Julie is trying hard and have some tracks in which she show some of her potential. For instance, she really show a great potential when she unleashed herself in “False Lamentations”, “Alone”, “Obscure Illusions” or “Broken Memories”. These are also were the tracks sounded very focused and sounded like to Power Metal. I would say if there a point of improvement, it is there.
Julie will have hard time to compete with other singers if they decide to turn into Symphonic Metal, but also I don’t see them doing Melodic death Metal either. Julie has indeed a very nice niche in the Progressive/Power Metal and this is where I found she was great at in her album.
Another good point of the album is the certain constancy in its overall quality, whereas this constant is often lacking in first albums from metal bands I have reviewed on my band, For instance, Hydra has some cool tracks but overall it was an okay album.
To conclude, Obscure Illusions is a good album, a great starting album. The music is good, Julie is singing good but yet I remained to be impressed. This is a tough choice for the band that appeared to explore pathways in their album. In my own opinion, the band and Julie should consider pursuing in the progressive and power metal scene. The symphonic metal scene is very competitive and require female singers with high-frequency range or that have a professional training as opera singers.
But Rome did not built in one day and surely this is a good first milestone for the band, now they have to build up and gain experience to show they can produce quality albums.
If you are looking for a female-fronted metal band and/or to escape from Symphonic or Melodic Death for a good progressive metal leaning toward power metal, this is definitively an a “should-buy” album and my album of the month, especially it is also a great way to show support to “rookies” in the metal scene.
My favorites tracks are: Obscure Illusions, XIII (13), After All Has Turned to Pain, Alone, False Lamentations.
The Blood-Brain Barrier Scientist 