When a band describes themselves as playing Symphonic Metal these days you pretty much know what you’re in for. These days largely due to the dominance of the scene by bands like Nightwish your average band is Northern European, female fronted and apt to long epics and stabs of Folk amongst epic tales, wondrous in nature. They’re also largely rather bad outside the big guns. Seven Spires hail from Boston in the US, but otherwise they tick the required boxes.
The interesting thing about them though is that they are apt to real touches of genius on this their debut. That genius though is offset with forays as far out as ‘Black Metal’ (hence I presume the dodgy cover art) and some of those forays don’t turn out too well at all. Ask any reviewer though who has been around the block long enough what they’d prefer to listen to – a decent album or an album that is in equal measures highly memorable and instantly forgettable – you’ll always take the latter – hoping that next time the band has chosen the path to eternal riches and everlasting glory (sorry I forgot for a minute we were talking about the music business).
Of the good stuff it’s all about the hooks really, and these guys know how to write them – amidst the variety – which does take in a nice shot of Power Metal – there are gems which are mainly confined to the latter part of the album. The first seven songs here come from an EP release from 2013 and you will really notice the progression. The new material is so much more assured and far richer. Compare for example the power of second act opener ‘Stay’ with the rather by numbers first act dark opener ‘Encounter’ they are worlds apart in both approach and effect.
It’s tracks like ‘Choice’ from act I that really lay the ground for the second act’s more progressive cuts like the wonderful ‘Serenity’ or the dynamism of ‘Ashes’. And it’s there in that second part that you start to believe that the touches of aggression that punctuate the release lift this record from the mundane and point to a brighter ‘dark future’ for Seven Spires.
