You know, you just gotta love bands that are a complete surprise.
You're just sitting there minding your own business and here comes a band from the Urkraine that you've never heard of before
and they just freakin' knock you for a loop. Ok, so it's not completely unheard of....I mean, just here recently I've
had the same thing happen with 3 other Ukrainian bands, Holy Blood, Requital, and Evroklidon. But hey, if it happens
again, I'll act all surprised just like the rest of you and just enjoy the moment.
The band we have here is Angel 7. The band used to go by the name Seventh Angel, but as
we all know, that name is already taken. But regardless of the name, Angel 7 is a very talented and exciting band.
Musically, the band plays a mixture of speed and death metal, with all kinds of goodies thrown in to make it just a mess of
genres. The opening song "New Heaven Above the New Earth" just flat out rules. The absolutely rip into the song
from the first second with screeching, lightening fast guitars, just as fast keyboards, and roaring double bass. The
frantic pace of this song is common throughout the album. To imagine what this band sounds like...take some of Sonata
Arctica's faster material and twist them into death metal influenced songs. There are actually some parts on some songs
that sound o-so-similar to Sonata Arctica. The guitar work on this disc is fabulous. This guys can shred like
mad-men. Throw in some killer leads and some screaming solos and you have a disc that you will absolutely fall in love
with.
The band will occasionally mix in some different sounds, like a flute, or an India-sounding
intro, or even an ambient/techno song with some thumping bass, but believe me...it all fits together nicely and should not
disappoint fans of brutal and fast metal.
Vocally, the band does a very nice job. The vocals are growled for the most part, but
don't really get too deep. Imagine a movie where you got a slimy alien and the hero of the movie has his hands around
the throat of the alien and he's strangling him. Those dying gasps of the alien is what Angel 7's vocals sound like.
And in the song "Pop Antichrist" it even sounds like that gasping alien may be vomiting as well. Just some plan sick
vocals. The band uses some clean Russian singing on a few songs, but they are all well-done and complement the songs
in a good way.
As far as production goes, it's pretty good. I would like to have a little less high end
though as I always have to adjust the treble on my stereo when listening to this disc. But overall, the sound is pretty
powerful.
This is just a promo, so I don't have comments on lyrics or packaging. Just know that
the music here is top notch and one thing is for sure...Angel 7 is a band that I hope continues making music, cause these
ears are more than willing to listen to anything they put out. (Review by Matt)
