Evershine - Renewal
One of the most attractive sides of extreme metal is the abrasiveness of the sound behind it. In stark contrast to overly polished and easily digestible chart music you have to fight to appreciate it while everything about the music from the lyrics to the guitar tones resists you with all of their being. Eventually you either bounce off or you overpower it and are filled with the satisfaction that keeps me coming back to metal. Even so, sometimes you just aren’t in the mood for something that’ll be a struggle to listen to. Sometimes you find yourself wishing for something that’s still metal, but will simply lay you back on a bed and feed you morsels of melody while you can relax. Wish no more, because Renewal is almost custom designed to fulfil that particular fantasy.
Evershine’s sound consists of bombastic power metal in the same vein as Firewind with bursts of Dragonforce’s shred, which they perform with a serious amount of flair. There’s also a noticeable J-rock influence – opening track ‘Evershine’, for instance, is just screaming to be picked up as a theme song for the next big anime series. All of this is backed up by an incredibly positive mood, even by power metal standards. If your tastes are attracted to the more grim and frostbitten end of metal’s polychromatic spectrum then it is quite likely that Renewal is going to come off as saccharine and excessively poppy. Nevertheless, the album stands out in my collection just as Devin Townsend Project’s Epicloud does – as a beacon of feel-good listening that still has enough stopping power to make a satisfying listen. Take ‘Demon’s Ride’, for example – between its relentless double bass and frantic guitars, it comes off like ‘Painkiller’ has been filtered through X Japan.
I really love the way Renewal has been mixed. Once you’ve turned the bass up a tiny bit, it sounds like it’s being performed live. Everything has that little bit of grittiness that you get from the sound at a gig but without losing any clarity. Another high point is the musicianship on show – the keyboard and guitar solos occasionally drift close to pure fret-wanking, but they add a serious amount of melodic power to the album. Admittedly, it was hard work searching for negatives, but one minor fly in the ointment is Marco Coppotelli’s voice. While he does a fantastic job of hitting notes, he just doesn’t have enough power to really make himself noticed over the guitars. He’s a perfectly competent singer, but is never really any more than average throughout the album.
Let me conclude with a gaming metaphor: Renewal is to Inhuman Rampage as Final Fantasy is to Mass Effect. If like me you have no great love for J-rock, you’re going to have a hard time taking it particularly seriously. Even the darkest sounding songs on the album conjure up images of bug-eyed anime girls and angsty teenage heroes with implausible hair. However, if you look past its sugary outer coating then you will find a fantastic power metal band with a great line in melodic leads and duelling solos. Of course, if you do like J-rock and power metal, you might have just found your new favourite band…
copas from http://www.onemetal.com/2012/11/08/evershine-renewal/
Tracklist:
1. Evershine
2. Angel/Killer
3 .Run
4 .Demon’s Ride
5. The Storm
6. A Chance To Be Free
7. Here We Come
8. Faith And Dreams
9. Where Heroes Lie
TKP
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