Rock: Two ehh, one yeah.
May. 25th, 2006 11:21 amBetween the categories of "It sucks!" and "It rocks!" in heavy metal there is a category best categorized by "If members of the band are friends of yours, you can't understand why they don't get more attention. If you don't know anyone in the band, you can easily understand it." Or, more to the point, "They sound just like X", where X is some band from twenty years ago.
Both WinterStrain and Mystic Prophecy fall into this category. I'm sure they have local fans who love them, but in the end they don't bring a whole lot of interest to the music, either technically or lyrically.
WinterStrain tries to hard to be all things to all people. They toss around rock themes as if they understood them, but there's no real sense of appreciation or history for the music they're creating.
Mystic Prophecy's album Regressus, on the other hand, is just plain old power metal. If you're desperate for power metal mixed with vague, boring hints of Satanism, Mystic Prophecy is something worth listening to. If not, well, not.
The big problem with bands like Mystic Prophecy and Vandan Plas (the latter of which is technically very excellent and deserves more attention) is that no matter their skill, the music produced comes from musicians with a Christian background and, if they're not singing about how much they love/hate their job/girlfriend/life and they can't quite work up the science-fictional cheese of Ayreon (and hey, I like Ayreon!), they're railing/angsting/praising/worrying whatever their spiritual tradition.
Thank Osiris then for Pagan's Mind, a band which could care less about all that. Celestial Entrance has some cheese in it (they're not above ripping off Stargate SG-1, for example), but all of that is supplanted by hard rock guitars, power synths, proficient drums and some serious thought and effort. Songs like "Through Osiris's Eyes" and "Aegean Shores" are worth blasting on the car stereo with the windows down. On the other hand, "Dreamscape Lucidity" would sound better if the lyrics didn't suggest "stuff I wrote during my shift at the local new age bookstore."
Both WinterStrain and Mystic Prophecy fall into this category. I'm sure they have local fans who love them, but in the end they don't bring a whole lot of interest to the music, either technically or lyrically.
WinterStrain tries to hard to be all things to all people. They toss around rock themes as if they understood them, but there's no real sense of appreciation or history for the music they're creating.
Mystic Prophecy's album Regressus, on the other hand, is just plain old power metal. If you're desperate for power metal mixed with vague, boring hints of Satanism, Mystic Prophecy is something worth listening to. If not, well, not.
The big problem with bands like Mystic Prophecy and Vandan Plas (the latter of which is technically very excellent and deserves more attention) is that no matter their skill, the music produced comes from musicians with a Christian background and, if they're not singing about how much they love/hate their job/girlfriend/life and they can't quite work up the science-fictional cheese of Ayreon (and hey, I like Ayreon!), they're railing/angsting/praising/worrying whatever their spiritual tradition.
Thank Osiris then for Pagan's Mind, a band which could care less about all that. Celestial Entrance has some cheese in it (they're not above ripping off Stargate SG-1, for example), but all of that is supplanted by hard rock guitars, power synths, proficient drums and some serious thought and effort. Songs like "Through Osiris's Eyes" and "Aegean Shores" are worth blasting on the car stereo with the windows down. On the other hand, "Dreamscape Lucidity" would sound better if the lyrics didn't suggest "stuff I wrote during my shift at the local new age bookstore."
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