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Old 09-09-2017, 01:04 PM   #33 (permalink)
MicShazam
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Aalborg
Posts: 7,636
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I made a RYM account and got this: https://open.spotify.com/album/1kSjiB7DQZYkP1Td78lUVC

Triaxis - Key to the Kingdom

Genre: Power metal/heavy metal
Year: 2009
Nation: UK

What is it?
A bunch of pretty straight forward of fairly minimalist power metal (as far as power metal goes, anyway). There's not any pseudo operatic pretensions or wild neoclassical wankery here. Just some pretty basic riffs and driving rhythms topped with some fairly straight forward vocal melodies.

Production wise, it has the sound of an album produced for not a lot of money. The guitar riffs and drums have a sort of small room ambiance to them. The bass guitar comes through quite loud and clear, unlike a lot of metal made since... the beginning of the 80's, really.

The vocalist is a woman with a fairly plain voice. She doesn't have a lot of range but she does have a good command of tones and a fairly forceful voice. Not the most characteristic voice though. She sounds like a woman that could comfortably sing some bluesy hard rock music.


Any good?
A lot of the riffs and vocal melodies aren't exactly winners. Sometimes something memorable happens, but mostly it is a pretty vanilla offering. It isn't bad, really. I kind of like the lead guitars most of the time they appear. A lot of the verses are just somewhat heavy power metal riffs without any frills. I like the album better when it gets a bit more ornate.
Decent solos with some feeling to them and a nice sort of sound that I can get behind. The way the solo's sound can best be described as a pretty prototypical "metal" vibe.

That kind of sums up the album, really. If you replaced the vocalist with a stereotypical metal dude with high pitched squeals in his arsenal, this would be American Style Power Metal 101.

Rating
It's allright. I can't see myself returning to this repeatedly, but it's well made and fun enough for what it is. It's just unambitious and kind of lacks in the memorability and personality department.

6/10

An album that comes to mind as a much better example of something similar, done way better is the album Helion Prime by the band of the same name.

Last edited by MicShazam; 09-09-2017 at 03:01 PM.
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